Digital Relief: Using Modern Technology to Combat Heritage Loss
UNESCO’s primary objective is to preserve World Heritage sites, which are globally recognized for their outstanding value. These sites, however, are threatened by a variety of factors, such as looting, war, natural disasters, and the effects of climate change, which can lead to their loss or damage. The digital media revolution of the 21st century has opened up new methods to both preserve and document heritage objects. People can now take high-definition photos with their cell phones and share them through the World Wide Web, making it easier than ever to show the world objects and sites in danger. According to Freeman and Zarandona, “many people only experience World Heritage sites online or through social media”. In the past, people had to travel to a site to see it, and as a general rule, if a person cannot see something, they don’t care about it; this meant that smaller, lesser-known sites of heritage and the cultures associated with them tended to be overlooked and forgotten. While the modern digital age provides a platform from which to draw attention to sites that are at risk of being lost, there are still inevitable factors of loss.
The current age of technology provides solutions to preserve sites for future generations to appreciate. Digital photographs are a convenient and easily accessible option for preservation, as they can be quickly taken in high definition and shared globally with minimal training. With practice, photography can be elevated to a higher level, providing enriched visuals to those who view them. Furthermore, digital photographs can be used to compare recently damaged sites, aiding in understanding the extent of the damage. An example of this is The Castle of Gaziantep, Turkey, which experienced significant destruction from the February 2023 earthquakes. Photographs of the site may prove beneficial in the reconstruction efforts.
Modern technology offers solutions to weakened security, such as solar-powered cameras recently utilized in the Hatay Archaeology Museum to counter power outages caused by earthquakes. Drones equipped with cameras provide a quick and cost-effective way to survey heritage sites from above, and also allow repair crews to easily access any damages sustained from disasters (Luke et al. 2021).
3D models of sites can be used to create virtual reality environments, allowing the layman to properly appreciate the scale of a site, and offering an option for those with mobility issues to tour sites that would otherwise be unobtainable or impractical. As a method of preservation, 3D modeling and scanning can provide exact digital replicas that can be saved, backed up and shared across the world, providing an option to document sites at risk of imminent destruction. Furthermore, the growing prevalence of 3D printing technology and its progressive simplification allows for a digital model to be transferred into a physical form utilizing many materials from plastic and resin to metal and wood, enabling researchers, scientists, or the public to see an artifact in person without requiring the artifact to come to them. Additionally, 3D printing can be used to recreate sections of damaged artifacts, allowing for repairs to be made using readily available materials that can be precisely shaped from a scan or render, and can be used to preserve objects with low or deteriorating stability by creating a replication of artifacts out of stable and readily available materials. Roman restoration professionals used this method to repair a bust from the Syrian city of Palmyra that had been damaged in war.
Modern technology presents new opportunities for heritage preservation, however there are still challenges to be addressed, such as the need to train individuals in the use of new technology, the severity of which varies depending on their technological literacy. The most significant challenge to technology, however, is the same problem that it has been facing for millennia: the availability of these technologies is heavily skewed towards wealthy nations, who already have the resources to protect and preserve their heritage sites. According to Freeman and Zarandona, this problem is also evident in the digital sphere, with search engines skewing results towards the keywords that generate the most income. Many sites of endangered heritage are located in parts of the world that lack the means to acquire these technologies for preservation and documentation. Raising awareness for such sites would benefit greatly from the visual element provided by modern documentation technology; as such, it would be beneficial for organizations such as UNESCO to provide these resources to those working to protect and preserve heritage sites, particularly those facing imminent destruction from climate change, war, and other threats.
