Technology is helping advance archaeological knowledge at unprecedented speeds. Yet another example comes from the Bradeton Herald in Florida which recently described a new software algorithm that is being used to discover matches between large marble fragments...
It's the world's oldest and largest jigsaw puzzle, an ancient map of Rome in 1,200 fragments of marble. Archaeologists for centuries have tried to painstakingly piece together the sculpture, fragment by fragment. Now, computer wizards at Stanford University say they have created a software program that holds the key to the puzzle and the ancient city.
At the heart of the program are three-dimensional scans of the fragments and algorithms to find possible matches. Already the work has produced several dozen probable and possible matches.
"They've advanced farther and faster in the last months than we have in centuries," said Roman archaeologist Margaret Laird, a visiting lecturer at the University of Chicago. "These new matches are going to change a lot of what we know about the city of Rome."
The undertaking is a five-year study conducted by Marc Levoy, an associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford, to be completed by the summer. The findings and interactive 3-D models of the fragments are online, allowing scholars as well as elementary-school students unprecedented access to the monument.
It's the first time anyone has applied technology to piece together the ancient puzzle. Short of a 1961 book that's now out of print, the project's Web site is the only place where archaeologists will be able to examine each fragment of the map, known as the Forma Urbis Romae.
Levoy thinks the advance may shepherd a "revolution in computational humanities," where technology and the arts intersect.
"There is a trend toward putting knowledge online, where it can be searched by anyone," said Levoy. "Google is the encyclopedia of tomorrow. A kid working on his sixth-grade history report of Roman aqueducts now has access to information you'd find in a graduate library."
The project started in 1999, when Levoy and a group of students went to Italy to scan and build a 3-D interactive model of Michelangelo's "David." As a side project, they went to Rome and scanned the fragments of the ancient map, working around the clock and sleeping in shifts to meet a deadline.
The third-century map itself is a feat of cartography. It detailed nearly every architectural feature of the city, from large monuments like the Colosseum to shops, apartments and even staircases. The completed map, made up of several marble slabs, measured 60 feet by 43 feet and hung in one of the grandest monuments of the ancient city, the Templum Pacis. Today, only about 15 percent of the map survives, but it includes core parts of the city.
For centuries, scholars have visually matched up the heavy pieces of marble, some weighing several hundred pounds. In modern times, one match has been found every few years - a cause for huge celebration in the academic world.
The software program finds an average of one match a month. More.
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