Introduction
Digital tools provide an array of visual experiences which allow us to engage with the past in an increasingly realistic and immersive manner. The devices and technologies to achieve this are numerous and are currently employed by experts and amateurs alike. One can simply type “3D monuments” or “3D artifacts” on platforms such as YouTube or Google to get a sense of the amazing variety of applications and their users. In the field of cultural heritage management, three-dimensional modeling technologies have been used to replicate monuments that no longer exist or have been severely damaged. With more properties being added to the List of World Heritage in Danger and archaeological heritage being increasingly under threat due to economic activities such as construction work, looting, and conflict, both archaeology and cultural heritage management communities have begun to seek ways to bring heritage back to life and strengthen the outreach to the general public by transforming existing resources – photographs, reports, or videos— which are not interactive in nature.
In this paper, I explore the digitization of cultural heritage destroyed in sudden and catastrophic events (such as earthquakes, floods, and armed conflicts), and evaluate why and how interactions with three-dimensional (3D) differ from those of standing monuments. I focus on two ways of producing three-dimensional experiences of heritage sites that have been destroyed under modern conflict: photogrammetry (the most used technology) and game engines. I argue that although photogrammetry provides a handy tool to recreate the experience of destroyed monuments, it is only one tool among many, and comes with certain limitations. Game engines, such as the PlayCanvas engine, offer alternative or complementary ways of creating meaningful three-dimensional experiences of destroyed monuments. The creative ways in which one can still experience and learn from destroyed monuments outside of photogrammetry is exemplified by a case study using PlayCanvas WebGL Game Engine on the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in central Afghanistan.
Cultural heritage and values
Admittedly, there are many definitions of cultural heritage in international law and convention, ranging in inclusion from a narrow sense—the physical existence itself of tangible buildings, monuments, artifacts, and their archives or reproductions1—to a broader sense—tangible remains plus things/practices to which value is attributed (with a stronger emphasis on communities that live in, around, or with heritage and intangible cultural processes).2 In this paper, “cultural heritage” refers to its broader definition, viewing the value of cultural heritage not as an intrinsic attribute but as a historical, dynamic reinterpretation of its embedded networks of relation.
To evaluate the value of destroyed cultural heritage, we first need to explore how value is defined and how changing definitions of value have altered our conception of cultural heritage. Furthermore, we need to identify groups of people who impact how value has been defined, as the groundwork for any digital humanities project begins with the deliberation of its potential impact. The central questions that we need to consider in any cultural heritage related project are: 1. Who the stakeholders are and what roles they play; 2. the strength of digital humanities compared to physical conservation and preservation; 3. how the definition of value has evolved; 4. how digital humanities accords with these values.
The value of destroyed cultural heritage varies across different stakeholders. Mohammadreza Hajialikhani (2008, 1) defines stakeholders as individuals and organizations involved in, affected by, or influencing the works of conservation and preservation of cultural heritage. Following this definition, this paper recognizes four major groups of stakeholders: local communities, research groups, states, and international organizations. In terms of legal domain, the definition of value mainly comes from the laws and conventions put forward by international organizations, the most important among which are the UNESCO Cultural section, the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), and the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM).
Value first became a significant topic at the UNESCO 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. This meeting was described as “a convention establishing an effective system of collective protection of the cultural and natural heritage of outstanding universal value” (UNESCO 1972). Article 1 of the convention recognized five general types of value: historical value, commemorative value (old age value), aesthetic value, artistic value, and scientific value. Nevertheless, the definition of value has evolved with several other international documents, including the 1992 revision of the Operational Guidelines (UNESCO 1992) that pinpointed the importance of cultural landscapes, the 1994 Nara Document on Authenticity (ICOMOS 1994) that talks about the necessity of having a broader understanding of cultural diversity when evaluating value, and the 2001 revision of the Operational Guidelines (UNESCO 2001) that put forward integrity, which is concerned about the wholeness and intactness of cultural heritage.
These new concepts have extended cultural heritage value to its landscape, spiritual significance, and all intangible meanings contributing to its totality. In other words, lived experience becomes a vital component of any cultural heritage site and its history and representation. This extended definition of value makes me believe that local communities are a crucial part of the value system for their living “interaction with the past and the values they place on it” (Atalay 2012, 221), that research groups can serve as the bridge linking these communities with the academic world, and that the digital humanities are capable of displaying these broader and intangible values (Buckley 2019, 62). These beliefs also become the ground floor in building up a methodology for the use of digital methods for recreating an experience of lost or damaged cultural heritage.
Methodology
The creation of 3D models of monuments that no longer exist involves a particular set of methodological considerations. The first regards the acquisition of the data being used in three-dimensional experiences. Naturally, because the monument is no longer available for further exploration or field survey, one must rely entirely on previously-gathered information, in the form of photographs, drawings, or videos (see, for example, Stathopoulou et al. 2015). This limitation constrains the types of three-dimensional experiences that one can reproduce. Furthermore, sites that were never studied or recorded in any format stand very little chance of being adequate candidates for this sort of in-depth modeling. One can, of course, create 3D anaglyph images of single pictures or place a plan of a monument in a 3D environment with sound and special effects, but their accuracy (how close the 3D images are to the actual monuments) and precision (how close the 3D images are to each other) are limited.
Three-dimensional technologies are often associated with the “democratization” and “shareability” of knowledge (Angás et al. 2010), which I admire and have tried to promulgate. Naturally, open-sourced data, such as photographs and videos, are not always copyright-free and therefore one must be aware of this when sharing 3D models. For the most part, however, open sourced data provides students of cultural heritage management the opportunity to draw from a myriad of sources, thus creating more avenues for exploration and research in the 3D environment. Thus, for the present project, I commited to engage exclusively with open-source data. This self-imposed limitation was set to demonstrate that almost anyone can easily create a three-dimensional environment or experience solely by using what is available on the internet.
In this paper, particular concern has been paid to monuments that have been destroyed during episodes of modern warfare, terrorism, and other forms of conflict (as opposed to monuments that simply no longer exist because of the passage of time or other destructive events in the past). This deliberate choice does not mean the methods presented in this paper do not apply to other types of heritage. This particular line of inquiry is intended, in the first place, to target the typical type of heritage for which photogrammetry 3D reconstruction often falls short of the expectations. Also, recent global disturbances that have led to the destruction of ancient sites have an added impact on the broader public and their inclination to engage with the past. Another benefit of this focus is its ability to shift our attention to the constant destruction of archaeological sites. Moreover, it helps students of the ancient world engage more directly with the roles that we must play as mediators between the ancient and modern world. By embracing digital humanities approaches that engage with 3D modeling and programming, we can engage a wider audience. As Garstki (2016, 1) suggests, “the creation of a new representation of the artifact provides a new dimension to our interactions with these artifacts...the result of the digital movement in archaeology is a more interactive experience with artifacts, allowing researchers and the public alike digital access to archaeological collections.” The Bamiyan Buddha, which was not a topic of much academic research or public attention until its destruction by the Taliban in 2001, is an excellent example of how digital technologies play as critical a role as physical conservation in the field of heritage work, in terms of its ability to restore interactions with lost cultural heritage sites and landscapes and improve methods of community engagement.
Case study in the creation of three-dimensional experiences of the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley
Bamiyan, a city in modern Afghanistan, lies along the Silk Roads and was first recorded by Chinese Buddhist monks and travelers (Faxian in 400 CE and Xuanzang in 630 CE) as an important center for Buddhism (Salkin and Schellinger 1996). Construction of the two Buddha sculptures, carved directly into the sandstone Bamiyan Cliff 800 meters apart and measuring 38m (the eastern Buddha) and 55m (the western Buddha), dates to the sixth and seventh centuries (Blansdorf and Petzet 2009). In 2001, the monumental sculptures were destroyed by the Taliban. Publications, both academic and public, on this cultural heritage rapidly increased after its destruction in 2001, increasing the value assigned to this heritage after its physical disappearance. The unique cultural history associated with the Bamiyan Buddhas has made the site a perfect candidate for a case study for exploring how landscape and intangible attachment can be a part of a heritage site’s “outstanding universal value,” therefore arguing for the value of three-dimensional experience beyond a simple reconstruction of the heritage in cultural heritage management.
“Traditional” wisdom: photogrammetry
One of the most commonly applied methods of three-dimensional engagement with destroyed sites is photogrammetry, whose primary application in archaeology and cultural heritage is making three-dimensional models from two-dimensional data (i.e., images or scanning). One remarkable example was accomplished by Wahbeh et al. (2016), who combined professional and touristic imagery of the Temple of Bel at Palmyra to recreate it as a 3D model following its destruction by Daesh in 2015. They made a strong statement at the same time, claiming that “photogrammetry is the only available solution in this particular case [of physically destroyed monuments] as there is no possibility to use another technique for a survey or reconstruction of monuments which no longer exist or which are no longer accessible” (Wahbeh et al. 2016, 82).
The ability of commercial software such as Agisoft Metashape (previously known as PhotoScan) to provide robust and automated algorithms partially accounts for the popularity of photogrammetry in the 3D reconstruction of heritage sites. Unfortunately, there is a fundamental dilemma with this method: not just any image can be used for photogrammetry, only those with correct angles and sufficient resolution. As Stathopouloua et al. (2015) pointed out, image-based 3D modeling of monuments requires field data acquisition. An accurate model can only be produced with a combination of techniques besides photogrammetry, such as ground surveying and laser scanning (see Olson et al.’s (2013) year-long project about 3D recording of archaeological sites using PhotoScan Pro). It is clear how difficult this approach can be when applied to cultural heritage sites that went through sudden damage and how much effort must be put into this kind of project. For example, a significant number of 3D projects have been conducted on the Bamiyan Buddha statues (Gruen et al., 2006; Jansen et al. 2007; Toubekis et al. 2009; also see Petzet 2009 for an ICOMOS international project) even after their destruction. These grand projects gather groups of top scholars in the fields and utilize a variety of top-class, advanced techniques. Though these are usually are not easily accessible to younger scholars or students, open-source technology enables these groups to contribute as well.
For this project, I tried to reconstruct 3D models of the Bamiyan Buddha using photogrammetry, but this attempt failed due to the dearth of high-resolution images online, superposition of the lens angles, and apparent differences in the color contrast. The 3D models generated by PhotoScan Pro both lack depth and are no more than 2D photos (Figure 1). The low rate of success I had in these initial experiments questions the overall feasibility of relying on photogrammetry as the sole or major platform for bringing destroyed cultural heritage back to life, prompting me to explore alternative methods.
Not only does photogrammetry have a low rate of success in reproducing cultural heritage that underwent sudden loss, but a straightforward 3D construction of the monument itself largely neglects the extended definition of cultural heritage acknowledged in the 1972 WHC and its Operational Guidelines. In other words, three-dimensional engagement through photogrammetry specifically falls short in balancing the tangible monuments and intangible cultural processes, and generating more engagement from a wider audience. Nevertheless, as Hugh Denard (2012, 70-71) points out, the growing importance of sustainability (of outcomes and documentation) and access (to cultural heritage that is otherwise inaccessible) in creating or evaluating computer-based visualizations of cultural heritage calls for high-integrity heritage visualizations that generate dialogue among diverse kinds of stakeholders and audiences: virtualization that is equally accessible to all, which can be accomplished with a platform that works as a digital repository and is teamwork supported, publicly interactive, and of educational value. In addition to my desire to use open-source data and platforms in creating such virtualization of Bamiyan heritage, I hoped that these methods would facilitate the exploration of experiences and narratives we construct about the past and expand the audience’s understanding of the Bamiyan site itself. Most people conceptually link the Bamiyan cultural heritage to just the two largest buddha statues in the valley called Bamiyan. In contrast, the name of Bamiyan on the World Heritage List— Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley—indicates, at least from a professional point of view, the heritage should represent the whole cultural landscape which includes other statues and the caves surrounding the statue niches. To better present the value of the cultural landscape and the value formation process, I decided to create a multiplayer game that leads a tour through a virtual site museum of Bamiyan.
Multi-integration of 3D modeling methods in game engine: virtual museum of Bamiyan in PlayCanvas
|
|
| a | b |
The primary goal of this project was to use PlayCanvas as a platform through which I can integrate other powerful 3D modeling software such as PhotoScan Pro, SketchUp, SketchFab, and Blender. PlayCanvas was specifically chosen as the game engine used in this project because it is theoretically free, relatively user-friendly for beginners, allows users to set up a team on a single project, and is compatible with a variety of software, as mentioned above. Nevertheless, it also has several limitations. First of all, PlayCanvas limits free users to games no larger than 200MB, which restricts the amount of content that can be imported into the game as assets. Second, it performs differently in different operating systems or web browsers when a game contains video and audio. While none of these limitations became a big issue for this project in the end, they may affect the work of others.
I made a model of the niche of the buddha and the cliff where the buddha was located in SketchUp using the illustration and measurements provided in the reports from ICOMOS (Figure 2a-b). Next, I built a buddha model in Blender and imported the niche and cliff designed in SketchUp (Figure 3). I added object and environment textures in Blender, imported a video, and rendered the animation that I later imported into the PlayCanvas as video texture. In PlayCanvas, I set up a virtual site museum based on the map provided by a French archaeology team (Godard et al. 1928, fig. 18) (Figure 4 and https://playcanv.as/p/PYqpBp1P/). Models and related images were imported along with two models from SketchFab, and screenshots of a Bamiyan cave model were pieced together to create a cave-like room.
|
|
The theme of the game is to rethink the meaning of disappearance. In PlayCanvas, the timeline of this virtual museum is reversed. In rooms 1 and 2 (Figure 5a), which represent the modern period, I imported stamps, newspaper articles about the increasing popularity of this cultural heritage as image textures, a video published by UNESCO talking about the importance of this world heritage even after the destruction as video texture, and the model of Bamiyan Buddha after its destruction created in SketchUp. As I have mentioned, the destruction of the Buddha propelled an enormous wave of scholarship and public attention. It is worth noting that Bamiyan was inscribed in the World Heritage List in 2003, two years after the destruction of the two major buddhas. If the value of Bamiyan is only about the physical existence of the statues, then why did UNESCO believe it still held “outstanding universal value” with its cultural landscape? If the destruction means an end to studying a heritage, then why have scholars continued to set up projects there?
Through the first two rooms, I expect players to gain a preliminary understanding that although we may have lost the physical existence of the Buddha, but we have done much more research and understand its multi-layered value better after 2001, securing its inscription on the World Heritage List. Based on this understanding, I want to encourage players to rethink the relationship between the still existing landscape and the specific buddha statues we now pay the most attention to by exploring how the value of Bamiyan cultural heritage became focused on these two statues in the first place.
Room 3 and 4 (Figure 5b) represent the period between the 18th century to 2001 when European travelers rediscovered and recorded the site. During this period, we see standardization in the representations of the site with the Bamiyan Buddha being the primary focus, even though the Bamiyan valley, as a living environment, would have enabled more diverse experiences and contained all sorts of meanings to people who spent days there. Room 5, consisting of a maze, represents the period between the 12th and 18th centuries. Black walls symbolize the absence of documents. Even though the Bamiyan was physically there, no one remembered so it “disappeared.” This again raises the question of whether it is memory extinction that makes a heritage disappear.
Finally, I want to encourage players to explore what exactly makes up the authenticity and integrity of Bamiyan. Room 6 and 7 (figure 5c-d) focus on the caves surrounding the buddha niche. These caves were where actual human activities happened. Both rooms are imported with image textures of wall paintings or screenshots of a cave model reconstructing the realistic scene one would see in a Bamiyan cave. Contemporary video texture is also imported in Room 6 to reflect that the local community has a more nuanced feeling towards these caves than the giant buddha statues. A whole set of Bamiyan models is placed behind the last corridor, with a video animation rendered from Blender to imitate a textured Bamiyan complex with a video providing more information. Like Michael Kimball (2016, 48, 55, 70-71) wrote, “there are different renditions that need to be heard, ones that are based on different world views and lived experience… [For] the Bamiyan Valley, a landscape in progress… although the Taliban succeeded in destroying much of the tangible remains of the statues, they could not extinguish their transformative merit still alive within the heritage of Hazara3 placekeepers.” It is the whole cultural landscape of the Bamiyan Buddha that makes up its authenticity and integrity. Throughout the game, I want to evoke players’ awareness of the game objective: as long as the memory of the Bamiyan Buddha does not fade away, this destroyed cultural heritage will not disappear. Everyone can participate in its cultural heritage management, even via playing this game.
Conclusion
The paper examines the continued value of destroyed cultural heritage and explores how these values can be presented by applying diverse digital humanities approaches in addition to traditional methods, such as photogrammetry. Using this game project, I propose that the tools and possibilities for creating cultural landscapes of sites destroyed or damaged in modern conflict go far beyond the physical dimension. In this case, games can be effective conveyors of cultural heritage's immense value, preservation, and continued impact upon human experience – even after the monuments have disappeared. This alternative approach, the game engine, is not the only avenue to communicate the value of destroyed cultural heritage from multiple stakeholders. I nevertheless hope this project can serve as a template for future projects and promote more dialogue and more creativity in the field of digital humanities and cultural heritage management, encouraging a broader exploration of what makes up the integrity and authenticity of heritage’s value, a large portion of which may exist beyond the tangible level. Most importantly, I genuinely believe that the physical disappearance of an ancient monument should not be the end of its story.
|
|
| a | b |
|
|
| c | d |
Notes
1 See Article 1 of the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention 1954 (1954 Hague Convention); Article 1 of the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property 1970 (1970 Convention).
2 See Article 1 and 2 of the 1972 World Heritage Convention.
3 The largest community in Bamiyan, whose identity has long been rooted in the Bamiyan Buddhas.
Works Cited
Angás, Jorge, Paula Uribe, and Angeles Magallón. “Democratization of 3D applications in Archaeology. A case of study: The Roman Dam of Muel (Zaragoza).” Fusion of Cultures. Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, Granada, Spain, April 2010, edited by Francisco Contreras, Mercedes Farjas and Francisco Javier Melero. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2013.
Atalay, Sonya. Community-Based Archaeology: Research with, by, and for Indigenous and Local Communities. 1st ed. University of California Press, 2012.
Blansdorf, Catharina, and Michael Petzet. “The Giant Buddha Statues in Bamiyan.” The Giant Buddhas of Bamiyan: Safeguarding the Remains, edited by Michael Petzet. ICOMOS, 2009.
Buckley, Kristal. “Heritage Work: Understanding the Values, Applying the Values.” Values in Heritage Management: Emerging Approaches and Research Directions, edited by Avrami, Erica, Susan Macdonald, Randall Mason, and David Myers. Getty Publications, 2019: 50-65.
Denard, Hugh. “A New Introduction to the London Charter.” Paradata and Transparency in Virtual Heritage Digital Research in the Arts and Humanities Series, edited by A. Bentkowska-Kafel, D.Baker & H. Denard, 2012: 57-71.
Garstki, Kevin. “Virtual Representation: The Production of 3D Digital Artifacts.” Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 24, no. 3 (2017): 726–50.
Giddens, Anthony. The Constitution of Society. Cambridge, England: Polity Press, 1984.
Godard, A., Y. Godard, and J. Hackin. “Les Antiquités bouddhiques de Bâmiyân (Tome II des Mémoires de la Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan).” Journal des savants (1928): 375-376.
Gruen, Armin, Fabio Remondino and Li Zhang. “The Bamiyan project: multi-resolution image-based modeling.” Recording, Modeling and Visualization of Cultural Heritage, edited by Manos Baltsavias, Armin Gruen, Luc van Gool, and Maria Pateraki. Taylor & Francis Group: London, 2006: 45-53.
Hajialikhani, Mohammadreza. “A Systematic Stakeholders Management Approach for Protecting the Spirit of Cultural Heritage Sites.” 16th ICOMOS General Assembly and International Symposium: ‘Finding the spirit of place – between the tangible and the intangible’ (2008).
ICOMOS. The Nara Document on Authenticity (1994), https://www.icomos.org/charters/nara-e.pdf
Jansen, M., G. Toubekis, A. Walther, M. Döring-Williams and I. Mayer. “Laser Scan Measurement of the Niche and Virtual 3D Representation of the Small Buddha in Bamiyan.” Layers of Perception. Proceedings of the 35th International Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), Berlin, Germany, April 2–6, 2007 (Kolloquien zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte, Vol. 10), edited by Posluschny, A., K. Lambers and I. Herzog, 2008: 83-90.
Kimball, Michael. “Our Heritage Is Already Broken: Meditations on a Regenerative Conservation for Cultural and Natural Heritage.” Human Ecology Review 22, no. 2 (2016): 47–76.
Olson, Brandon R., Ryan A. Placchetti, Jamie Quartermaine, and Ann E. Killebrew. “The Tel Akko Total Archaeology Project (Akko, Israel): Assessing the Suitability of Multi-Scale 3D Field Recording in Archaeology.” Journal of Field Archaeology 38, no. 3 (2013): 244–62.
Petzet, Michael ed, and International Council On MOnuments and Sites (ICOMOS) = المجلس الدولي للمعالم والمواقع (ايكوموس). The Giant Buddhas of Bamiyan: Safeguarding the Remains. Berlin: Hendrik Bässler Verlag, 2009.
Salkin, Robert M., and Paul E. Schellinger. International dictionary of historic places. Vol. 5, Asia and Oceania. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1996.
Stathopoulou, E. K., A. Georgopoulos, G. Panagiotopoulos, and D. Kaliampakos. “Crowdsourcing Lost Cultural Heritage”. ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences II–5/W3 (2015): 295–300.
Themistocleous, Kyriacos. “Model reconstruction for 3d vizualization of cultural heritage sites using open data from social media: The case study of Soli, Cyprus.” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 14 (2017): 774–781.
Toubekis, Georgios, Marina Döring-Williams, Michael Petzet, Susumu Morimoto, Michael Jansen, Matthias Jarke, Kazuya Yamauchi, Yoko Taniguchi, Irmengard Mayer and Kosaku Maeda. “Preservation and management of the UNESCO world heritage site of Bamiyan: Laser scan documentation and virtual reconstruction of the destroyed Buddha figures and the archaeological remains.” Digital Documentation, Interpretation & Presentation of Cultural Heritage, CIPA Symposium, October 11-15, 2009. Kyoto, Japan, edited by Yutaka Takase, 2009.
UNESCO. Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, 1972, https://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/
UNESCO. Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, 1992, http://whc.unesco.org/archive/out/guide92.htm
UNESCO. Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, 2001, http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2001/whc-01conf208-6e.pdf
Wahbeh, W., S. Nebiker, and G. Fangi. “Combining Public Domain and Professional Panoramic Imagery for the Accurate and Dense 3D Reconstruction of the Destroyed Temple of Bel in Palmyra.”ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences III–5 (2016): 81–88.