Virtual anastylosis of Greek sculpture as museum policy for public outreach and cognitive accessibility

Abstract

This paper deals with a virtual anastylosis of a Greek Archaic statue from ancient Sicily and the development of a public outreach protocol for those with visual impairment or cognitive disabilities through the application of three-dimensional (3-D) printing and haptic technology. The case study consists of the marble head from Leontinoi in southeastern Sicily, acquired in the 18th century and later kept in the collection of the Museum of Castello Ursino in Catania, and a marble torso, retrieved in 1904 and since then displayed in the Archaeological Museum of Siracusa. Due to similar stylistic features, the two pieces can be dated to the end of the sixth century BC. Their association has been an open problem, largely debated by scholars, who have based their hypotheses on comparisons between pictures, but the reassembly of the two artifacts was never attempted. As a result the importance of such an artifact, which could be the only intact Archaic statue of a kouros ever found in Greek Sicily, has not fully been grasped by the public. Consequently, the curatorial dissemination of the knowledge related with such artifacts is purely based on photographic material. As a response to this scenario, the two objects have been 3-D scanned and virtually reassembled. The result has been shared digitally with the public via a web platform and, in order to include increased accessibility for the public with physical or cognitive disabilities, copies of the reassembled statue have been 3-D printed and an interactive test with the 3-D model has been carried out with a haptic device.

Archaeological anastylosis of two Macedonian tombs in a 3D virtual environment

“…In another project, virtual anastylosis was carried out in the case of the architectural ornamentation of the Teatro Marittimo in Villa Adriana (Adembri, Cipriani, & Bertacchi, 2018). A virtual anastylosis of a Greek Archaic Statue coming from Ancient Sicily was carried out by Stanco et al (2017). Thuswaldner et al (2009) used digital technology in order to perform digital anastylosis at the Octagon Monument at Ephesus.…”

Inclusive Museums and Augmented Reality: Affordances, Participation, Ethics, and Fun

“…Feedback on enjoyment was also sought in Villanueva et al (Villanueva et al 2013) using a specific question about enjoyment of using the software. Others (Guttentag 2010;Partarakis et al 2016b;Stanco et al 2017) mentioned enjoyment as an aspect of the AR museum experience but collecting data on enjoyment was not part of the methodology or discussed within the paper.…”

“…A significant characteristic of AR technologies being developed for museums is their use of Connectivity to extend or transform particular aspects of the user experience. AR is able to optimize navigation through museum spaces, and present accessible personalized information in a time efficient fashion, with the potential to facilitate a profound personal impact (Stanco et al 2017). In this respect researchers are using the affordances of AR to go beyond access alone and to make possible new enjoyable multisensory exploratory experiences for disabled people.…”

Museum visitor preference for the physical properties of 3D printed replicas

“…However, these activities are typically run as one-off events and permanent provision within exhibition spaces for such visitors is still limited. As highlighted by many authors (Wilson et al 2017aScopigno et al 2017;Stanco et al 2017), 3D printed replicas are theoretically a perfect way to allow BPS visitors to access collections using senses mandatory to their understanding of the world around them, especially with items too delicate to be handled by the untrained visitor. A major question though is how do the needs of a BPS visitor differ from those of other visitors?…”