To Willeke Wenderish, an associate professor of Egyptian archaeology at the University of California at Los Angeles, exploring the ruins of an ancient temple within an air-conditioned computer classroom can be even more useful than visiting the site in person.
Ms. Wenderish recently co-produced a virtual-reality project called “Digital Karnak,” which allows students (and visitors to the project’s Web site) to learn how the Egyptian religious center has evolved over two millennia. Milling about the ruins or studying a two-dimensional map of the Karnak site can be disorienting, she said. Virtual modeling, on the other hand, allows scholars to observe what in the structure changed and when—using a more sophisticated tool than the mind’s eye.
“It helps them think through all the things that you wouldn’t have thought through if you were looking at a map,” she said—“which areas were roofed, not roofed, how high would the walls have been, how large would a doorway have been.” It also allows scholars to more vividly illustrate contrasting theories of how the site evolved over time, she said.
Ms. Wenderish said she plans to evangelize on the advantages of virtual modeling at this weekend’s annual conference of the American Research Center in Egypt, in Dallas. She thinks virtual technology, while increasingly popular, is still underused in archaeology. One reason is that “they’re costly endeavors,” she said, but illuminating ones.
And not just for understanding architectural sites, either: Ms. Wenderish said she is also working on virtual-reality projects on topographical sites, such as the Faiyum oasis, which contains some of the earliest evidence of Egyptian agriculture. “We model different levels of lake,” she said, “changes in landscape over time, where we find material and how it relates to the landscape—really to map out how the movement of the lake relates to human occupation in the area.” –Steve Kolowich
