Ancient Spaces - Bringing Ancient History to Life

You are walking through a marketplace. In the near distance you see a group of people converging on your community’s leader. They seem to be arguing. You see a knife! Your leader is stabbed! Not once, not twice! They are all stabbing Julius Caesar! You have just witnessed the Ides of March.  

Are you interested in researching or exploring the ancient civilizations of Greece, Egypt, and the Americas? Do you want to converse with Socrates in the Agora? How about rebuilding the Pyramids, the Ziggurats, or the Temple of Jerusalem? Have you wondered what life would be like in an ancient First Nations village? Would you like to join Julius Caesar’s campaigns?

That is the opening paragraph of an interesting site called Ancient Spaces. This site, an open-source project under the auspices of the University of British Columbia, provides an interesting and unique view into civilizations of the past. Some of the interesting aspects of this site include:

•    3D renderings of homes and artifacts of ancient North America and Peru

•    Time-lapse video of the Parthenon throughout the day

•    A rendering of the interior of the Parthenon

•    3D renderings of buildings of ancient Egypt and Rome, and so on.

Ancient Spaces is an excellent example of Virtual Archaeology. This discipline, virtual archaeology, uses modern technology to bring the past to life. It uses 3D modeling programs such as Blender 3D and Ogre to recreate ancient cities. (Click here to view the Programmers Notes.) For example, a virtual archaeologist could use this  technology to recreate Pompeii, Ancient Rome or Athens, Londinium, etc.

Incorporating other technologies such as a virtual reality modeling language (VRML), one could rotate the image of the city to see it from different perspectives. This discipline is great for educational endeavors, game designers, teachers, and architects. I certainly wish it existed when I was studying Ancient History. It is more interesting than memorizing dates!