Digital knights fight back at ISIS with 3D images

A team of high-tech "monuments men" are determined to stop ISIS from destroying ancient sites in the Middle East. 3D printing technology is being harnessed to reconstruct destroyed antiquities in the area.

MUNTINLUPA CITY, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - "Monuments men," comprised of digitally equipped individuals, are fighting back against the threat ISIS poses to historic sites in the Middle East by using cameras and 3D printing technology to reconstruct destroyed sites.

Several archaeologists from Oxford and Harvard will flood the Middle East regions with 3D cameras to create a digital record of all threatened historical sites and artifacts by the Jihadist group.

If ever the sites are destroyed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, archaeologists will harness 3D printing technology to accurately reconstruct the buildings.

The move was prompted by the recent destruction of the 2,000-year-old temple of Baal Shamin in Palmyra, last week. ISIS demolitions are the first sources of mass archaeological destruction since the Second World War.

According to a letter released by the Oxford-based Institute for Digital Archaeology, the 2 million pound reconstruction project aims to "flood the Middle East with thousands of low-cost 3D cameras" and enlist "volunteers to photograph as many buildings of historical significance as possible."

The institute is also working with the heritage body of UNESCO and is aiming to gather five million images of historical artifacts, from the sprawling Mesopotamian palaces to coins and pottery, hopefully to be completed by the end of 2015.

In an attempt to stay ahead of the bulldozers, sledgehammers and bombs, the group hopes to compile 20 million pictures of historical objects before 2017.

"Palmyra is rapidly becoming the symbol of ISIS' cultural iconoclasm," Roger Michel, the institute's director, said. "If ISIS is permitted to wipe the slate clean and rewrite the history of a region that defined global aesthetic and political sensibilities, we will collectively suffer a costly and irreversible defeat. But there is hope. By placing the record of our past in the digital realm, it will lie for ever beyond the reach of vandals and terrorists."

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