Of course the hope of the Heritage Reconstructed project is to be able to preserve archaeological sites in order to preserve its history. There are many ways that a site can be preserved, from physical reconstructions to virtual reconstructions. We decided to focus on virtual reconstructions as this allows for many opportunities.
There can be virtual reconstructions that represent the way the site looks at the moment (this can be a way for people to explore the site without being able to actually visit). There can also be virtual reconstructs that represent the way that the site could have looked like when it was originally in use. This takes into account more of the archaeological data and interpretation, however, this is something that cannot really be seen when even visiting the site.
Although something like this is possible onsite, it can end up damaging the site or altering the way that was originally found or originally used. VR is a way to do this type of reconstruction without damaging the site or being permanent. It can also allow for different ways of representing the site (i.e. across time/through different phases).
Heritiage Reconstructed helps overcome the roadblocks students often face when doing research due to access. As students, we have often come across roadblocks while doing research due to access. This includes limited access to physical resources: library access, finding manuscripts in other places, long waits for items that did not coincide with when my research was due, or the ever common pay wall. There are many people who do not have the time or money to find certain resources, especially if they are stuck behind a paywall, or they may not be lucky enough to have professors or advisors that are willing to help.
There are also people who cannot afford education and, thus, do not have access to the advisors that may be able to help. With the database being open to whomever is interested, it can connect them to different types of VR projects, companies or groups that are doing the same work but with different sites and resources that can be explored.
Heritage Reconstructed is committed to using VR for education. We provide interested parties with a path to different educational resources related to VR or archaeology.Since finding resources or items pertaining to one topic can be difficult, or nearly impossible if there is a map that is needed to get there, we are aggregating VR resources across the web into one place with our database.
Besides using the database for pedagogy, we are using the database to educate others about the importance of VR for archaeological sites, focusing on the sites that are in peril as these are the ones that we risk losing the opportunity to gather data for. We also wanted to create one centralized location of any VRs that have been done already. The internet, as we all know, is a big place.
We are commited to VR as it allows for a unique way of showing archaeological sites. Without having to travel, students can learn about a site in different ways and can even have a better view of the sites than in person (being able to get up close to the sites that may be blocked off in person). The game-like mechanics can also be appealing to a younger audience or those who learn more easily through visual means. In connection with preservation as well, it allows for sites to be visited even if they have been destroyed.
The adaptation of VR technologies in the sphere of Heritage Reconstruction is an emerging field with an impressive community of scholars and creative builders. From projects like CyArk pledging to digitally document the world’s cultural heritage to the Spanish journal Virtual Arqueo which actively reports on ongoing projects in the field, this developing interdisciplinary frontier is exciting for digital humanists and potentially revolutionary. Yet there remains an institutional need for more projects like Heritage Reconstructed to expand the conversation on how VR technologies and other digital tools can be used to address challenges in heritage and environmental conversation of archeological sites, especially for audiences outside the field.
We need more collaborative open access virtual reconstructions. Despite the lively community of online creators, one of the challenges facing projects like Heritage Reconstructed is the limited public availability of archeological virtual reconstructions for academic use. Most archeological virtual reconstructions are owned by private archeological firms and virtual tech companies and are therefore not fully accessible to archeology students, digital humanists, and the general public who wish to experiment with such tools. Our goal in building a database is to create a central resource for a general audience of archeological VR and to build upon it as access to this content becomes more widely accessible.
We need to emphasize the humanistic urgency facing archeological sites in peril. For archeological sites in peril, the existential imperative to create more publicly accessible virtual reconstructions is even greater. According to UNESCO, 53 of its designated world heritage sites in peril, whether from armed-conflict or environmental degradation. Yet few among these sites have publicly available virtual or digital reconstructions while many of the more well-known and well-preserved sites do. Although our database specifically covers sites in peril, there are many more we are not able to cover or identify. Our goal is to make ‘sites in peril’ a more critical part of the archeological VR conversation.