Robots RePAIR Pompeii's frescoes

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Solving Pompeii’s Shattered Puzzles With a Robot. Artificial intelligence will aid the robot in its attempts to put together frescoes that were shattered when Mount Vesuvius erupted (Ofer Aderet, Haaretz).

Many vestiges of Pompeii such as mosaics and frescoes have been preserved in their entirety because they were buried under the volcanic ash. In the 18th century, the first archaeologists to excavate the city discovered these works.

The 15,000 stones apparently were parts of frescoes that the eruption scattered in all directions. After painstaking work, archaeologists and other researchers concluded that the challenge was beyond human capabilities.

Prof. Ohad Ben-Shahar of Ben-Gurion University’s Department of Computer Science agrees, so the Sisyphean task will be done by a robot fueled by artificial intelligence.

Cross-file under Algorithm Watch and Decorative Art.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the eruption of Vesuvius and its destruction of Pompeii and Heculaneum, start here and follow the links

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