An ancient temple that was considered one of the best-preserved examples of ancient art and architecture, and was destroyed during Syria’s civil war, has now had a remarkable technological rebirth.
The Temple of Bel, in Palmyra, is gone but a collaboration between two laboratories at the University of California San Diego has produced a 3D reconstruction of the temple which can be viewed below.
The university library’s Digital Media Lab worked with the school’s Levantine Archaeology Laboratory, used 3D and artificial intelligence tools to build the simulation from photographs collected from open source databases, the Roman Society, Oxford University and more.
