By PATRICIA
DONOVAN
Contributing Editor
Nearly 2,700 years after it was buried in the Mesopotamian earth, the
crumbled, plundered, and now spectacular palace of the ancient Assyrian
King Ashur-nasir-pal II will within the next year open its virtual doors
to visitors from around the world.
Upon entering the palace, they will view a historically accurate,
complex, detailed, high-resolution virtual worldan ancient worldthrough
which they can "walk" at their own pace, navigating the massive courtyards,
anterooms, throne room and corridors, going in whatever direction they
prefer, turning corners, touching (and feeling) structural details and
decorative items.
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A
view of the Great Northern Courtyard. |
The visit will be made possible by archaeologists, engineers and computer
scientists at UB who have been digging with digital tools to produce
the next era of instructional devices.
The palace of Ashur-nasir-pal is one of a series of Assyrian palaces
whose virtual "reconstruction" will be possible because of a change
in methods of archaeological presentation and publishing being applied
at UB.
As functional as they are complex, these multi-user, multimedia, real-time
virtual realms will be available for exploration by a diverse audience
through hardware ranging from hand-held devices to fully immersive environments.
Their work, say the researchers, has led to the production of a massive
bank of educational research resources that can be used for a variety
of educational purposes beyond those on which they are focusing.
The project was conceptualized by noted archaeologist and Middle-East
historian Samuel M. Paley, professor of classics, and Donald Sanders
of Learning Sites Inc. of Williamstown, Mass., a company that produces
archaeological visualizations for interactive education and research
purposes.
It involves a team of archaeologists and architects from UB, the University
of Warsaw and the University of Oregon. They are working in collaboration
with Learning Sites, the Virtual Reality Laboratory in the School of
Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Center for Computational Research
and the New York State Center for Engineering Design and Industrial
Innovation (NYSCEDII) at UB.
The applications are being demonstrated in the project's first phase,
a virtual reconstruction of the Northwest Palace of Ashur-nasir-pal
II. The effort is being led by Paley; Thenkurussi Kesavadas, UB assistant
professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering; Richard P. Sobolewski
of the Polish Center of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University
of Warsaw, and Alison B. Snyder of the University of Oregon.
Prototypes can be seen at http://www.classics.buffalo.edu/htm/UBVirtualSiteMuseum/summaryNimrud.htm
(UB's Virtual Site Museum) or http://www.learningsites.com/NWPalace/NWPalhome.html
Although it will take years to finish, the virtual Ashur-nasir-pal
palace will be available in completed sequences to offer a glimpse into
the educational possibilities that have arisen from new information
technologies.
Sanders says the palace is being constructed from multi-media, multi-dimensional
knowledge bases that already demonstrate the usefulness of virtual reality
as a collaborative tool for interactive research and education in the
social sciences. These tools will further the educational dimension
of the experience by linking various sites in the palace to drawings,
photographs, descriptive and analytical text, and high-resolution renderings
of the building complexes.
The results will be published both on DVD and on the Internet to allow
for the integration of live updates, distance-education features and
links to new information as they arise. Access to Internet2 and the
technologies of the ImmersaDesk and CAVE also are in progress
at UB and demonstrate the benefits of life-size, virtual-reality applications.
Kesavadas and Paley are designing ways to use haptic tools (i.e.,
tools related to the sense of touch) that will enable visitors to "feel"
structural surfaces, draperies and clothing, giving them a more realistic
and intuitive way of understanding artifact and environment.
To assist visitors, the palaces will be populated by intelligent agentsvirtual
Assyrians as avatars who will act as site interpreters and building
"guides," answer visitors' questions about the palaces and instruct
them in the use of haptic devices and a virtual examination toolkit.
Kesavadas points out that computer graphics, specialized hardware
and software, and virtual-reality technology have been used by engineers
for several years to advance the state of manufacture and design.
"Now," he says, "we're using it to bring us 'into' physical environments
to which we have had limited accessthe human body, for instance, or
ancient archaeological sites."
Paley explains that the benefits of the overall project are enormous,
not only for the educational community, but also for the research community
as a whole.
"The palaces have been severely plundered," he says, "and the removal
of hundreds of pieces of bas-relief and sculptural items obstructs our
understanding of the total composition of the art on their walls.
"This not only impedes scholarly interpretation that would help us
understand Assyrian art and palace construction as it developed in the
Neo-Assyrian period," he says, "but it prevents us from understanding
the relationship between inscription and relief, and how and why the
reliefs were created."
In addition, Paley maintains that the missing materials hinder identification
of the various hands that produced both the design and its execution,
perhaps even the origin of the sculptors and the principles of Assyrian
architecture.
This is why, he says, it is necessarynow that it is possible to recreate
the original site using digital archaeologyto bring together all of
the discrete items from the palace that are scattered across the globe
and, in a sense, put them back where they belong.
"Digital archaeology overcomes many of the shortcomings of traditional
paper-based archaeological reporting," Paley says, citing limits on
the number, types and size of images; reliance on prescriptive, static
and linear presentation; difficulty in updating data, ideas and images
in the publication; the expense of production per unit, and packaging,
mailing and warehousing costs.
Sanders says the Assyrian palace project demonstrates new visualization
and presentation techniques that incorporate moving images, sounds and
hyperlinks. Java, virtual reality and computer animations, he adds,
all can be seamlessly integrated into the basic methods of disseminating
archaeological data.
Projects like this make it clear that digital reconstruction will
be the archaeological presentation standard within 10-15 years, according
to Sanders and Paley. The methodologies used here, they say, not only
will offer an accurate look into a long distant time and place, but
also have additional applications, with implications for schools, museums
and future archaeological research.