Preservation of World Heritage Sites
Documentation and Collaboration
For World Heritage sites, preservation involves documentation and continued monitoring. Site documentation is essential as destruction can occur at any time and often happens without any forewarning. Built and natural heritage sites cannot be airlifted to safety; they must be protected in situ. To protect them effectively, they must be documented. Advances in technology now means that this documentation can be done with unprecedented detail.
Organizations such as CyArk are using 3D laser scanning to document heritage sites. Also called terrestrial LiDAR, lasers are used to quickly create point clouds comprised of millions of measurements within a three-dimensional plane. These points can be immediately viewed as a 3D model, or used with software to create other types of models (Barton 2010). Such 3D imaging has already been used to great success on the Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi.
Thoughts on a digital preservation success
The Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi are the only cultural property of the three World Heritage Sites inscribed in Uganda, and the only one on the In Danger List. Constructed primarily of wood, bark, and thatch, they risk catching on fire. In 2009, it was documented using 3D laser scanning (Scientific American 2016); the data from these scans were donated and stored at CyArk (n.d.).
The 2009 documentation was exceptionally fortuitous, as in 2010, the Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi were severely damaged and partially destroyed in a fire. Less than a month later, UNESCO had committed to assisting Uganda in reconstructing the tombs (UN News 2010); construction began in 2014 (UN News 2014). Unfortunately, in 2020, a fire destroyed another one of the structures on the site (UN News 2020).
Despite being damaged and partially destroyed twice within a decade, the Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi represent a digital preservation success story. Three-dimensional scanning was completed before the fire in 2010, allowing for its reconstruction. Even though there was another fire in 2020, the data still exists, allowing the site to be reconstructed again (State of Conservation: Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi, 2021). Additionally, because the data exists, it provides time for Ugandan state managers to achieve the desired state of conservation for it to be removed from the In Danger List.
In 2013, CyArk launched the CyArk 500 Challenge to document and digitally preserve 500 World Heritage Sites within the next five years (Haynes 2013). The project was touted as a revolutionary initiative, but it has not been completed. Attempts to locate a complete list of heritage sites digitally preserved by CyArk proved futile; internet searches generated the same press releases from 2014. A count of 176 sites was obtained by individually counting points from the project map on their website.
Instead, in 2019, CyArk partnered with Historic Environment Scotland and the University of South Florida Libraries to create Open Heritage 3D. As the newly formed Open Heritage Alliance, these organizations are committed to making their past and future data open to the public. Since its founding, six additional contributors have signed on, including Texas Tech University, and over 200 data sets have been added to the project (Open Heritage Alliance n.d.).
Conclusion
CyArk has also collaborated with the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and Google Arts and Culture to create the web series, “Heritage on the Edge,” which explored how five World Heritage sites are being affected by climate change (ICOMOS 2020). This also coincided with CyArk’s release of new datasets for three World Heritage sites featured in the series (Cyark 2020). Other organizations collaborate to document and provide access to World Heritage sites. From 2014 to 2015, drone company QuestUAV, the Cyprus University of Technology, and the Cyprus Department of Antiquities worked together to scan part of the World Heritage Site of Paphos using drones. The photogrammetry scans were then turned into 3D models; some printed with braille labels for the visually impaired (Pix4D 2016).
Researchers at the University of San Diego and the University of Texas are developing affordable and portable scanning systems to reach previously inaccessible locations, such as underground spaces (Gautier et al., 2020). ICOMOS has also worked with universities across Europe to research and document World Heritage Sites in Europe, leading the creation of “3DPAST” (ICOMOS 2021).
While the CyArk 500 Challenge may not have reached its goal of 500 sites within five years, it was indicative of what would become a wider-reaching pattern: collaboration is the key to successful digital preservation. One company cannot be held responsible for the digital preservation of the world’s heritage; instead, the world must band together using advancing technology. This is just the beginning.
