{"id":79,"date":"2015-10-08T16:04:43","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T16:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2015\/?p=79"},"modified":"2015-12-10T22:14:33","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T22:14:33","slug":"digital-tools-reveal-ancient-architectural-details","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2015\/digital-tools-reveal-ancient-architectural-details\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Tools Reveal Ancient Architectural Details"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"150430_Campus_256\"<\/a>
Philip Sapirstein with image of 3-D model<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Greece\u2019s ancient Parthenon and other Doric temples still inspire awe and disagreement. The origin of this oldest known Greek architectural style remains highly controversial in ancient Greek scholarship.<\/p>\n

UNL art historian Philip Sapirstein set out to help challenge the prevailing theory of Doric origins using cutting-edge technology previously untested on an architectural scale.<\/p>\n

Since the 19th century, scholars had largely accepted that Doric style had developed in wood, later to be replaced with stone. Many modern scholars question the theory\u2019s evidence.<\/p>\n

Dubious as well, Sapirstein turned to the oldest well-preserved Doric structure, the 6th-century B.C. Hera Temple in Olympia, Greece, site of the original Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe building is very important because it\u2019s a linchpin for this old theory of the Doric style,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Using a high-quality camera and software that assembles 3-D models from 2-D images, Sapirstein created a virtual model of the temple, accurate to the millimeter. It\u2019s a modern spin on an old method of using photographs to take measurements.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe technique is great,\u201d he said. \u201cIt produces 3-D models very quickly and much more cheaply than you could using 3-D laser scanning hardware at this scale. It really opens up lots of possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before this software was available, measuring a temple half a football field long would have taken at least a decade, Sapirstein estimated. Using the software, he completed the task in just two months.<\/p>\n

His models have been accurate references as he reviewed 150 years of scholarship to refute the wooden-origin theory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to prove there wasn\u2019t a lost phase of something, like proving a ghost wasn\u2019t there,\u201d Sapirstein said. \u201cBut I found lots of evidence to support that the building didn\u2019t have wooden columns originally.\u201d<\/p>\n

In summer 2015, he returned to Olympia to finalize his 3-D models and is publishing his findings, which should help inform the debate. A long-term goal is to make the models available via an interactive website through UNL\u2019s Center for Digital Research in the Humanities.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greece\u2019s ancient Parthenon and other Doric temples still inspire awe and disagreement. A UNL art historian is using cutting-edge technology previously untested on an architectural scale to challenge the prevailing theory about the origin of the oldest known Greek architectural style.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":82,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[121,120,92,149,119],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ored-home","category-stories","tag-architecture","tag-art-history","tag-center-for-digital-research-in-the-humanities","tag-doric-architecture","tag-philip-sapirstein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":448,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions\/448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}