Abstract
More than ten years after the destruction of the giant Buddha figures in Bamiyan (Afghanistan) the emergency stabilization works for the preservation of the physical remains at the site have progressed. The condition of the heavily fractured Buddha niches has been documented using the latest high-resolution laser scanning technologies. Rock stabilization measures have been realized successfully and the destroyed figures have been reconstructed virtually using old photogrammetric documentation showing the Buddha figures before their destruction. High-level scientific methods in cultural heritage preservation focus on the documentation and analysis of the physical material itself while the immaterial aspects of the tangible heritage have to be addressed carefully also. The increased use of digital technologies has opened up new possibilities for visual exploration and the metric analysis of objects. Apart from the question of how far a virtual reconstruction of the destroyed structures can solve epistemological research interests it has to be carefully considered how the understandable desire of the local population for the emotional re-experience of their lost monuments is addressed. Questions are repeatedly raised as to whether or not the physical reconstruction of the figures should be pursued. While UNESCO does not consider a total reconstruction of the Buddha figures to be feasible at the moment, the discussion of how to preserve the physical remains of the destroyed figures in the long-term is far from concluded. The question of how far the reassembly of remaining fragments in their original position is adequate for the long-term preservation of the physical remains of the destroyed Buddha figures is still not answered satisfactorily.
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Notes
- 1.
During a period of weeks Taliban troops raided the storage rooms of the National Museum in Kabul and destroyed masterpieces of Buddhist art. Finely moulded clay figures and stone friezes depicting scenes of Buddha worshipping were broken in the boxes where the museum staff had preserved them during the confusion of the military conflicts of the 1990s. The destruction of the Buddha statues in Bamiyan took place simultaneously. The series of events is documented in Warikoo (2002).
- 2.
A collection and summary of the international charters for cultural heritage conservation and restoration can be found in (ICOMOS 2004) and can be downloaded from http://www.icomos.org.
- 3.
Editor’s note: This conflict of the relocation of the cave dwellers around Bamiyan was discussed in the film The Great Buddhas by the Swiss filmmaker Christian Frei (2005). The conflict between the presence of local inhabitants on or around an active site, which is declared cultural heritage goes often back to colonial times. In this volume, Sengupta discusses this issue with regards to institutionalized strategies of the British-colonial Archaeological Survey of India on declared heritage sites and supposedly ‘dead’ ruins. Falser mentions this process of ‘archaeologizing heritage’ through the relocation of local inhabitants for the site of Angkor Wat during French colonial times after 1900. Luco discusses the phenomenon of local inhabitants continuing to live on ancient land patterns, whereas Warrack explores ways and means to include the tacit knowledge of the local stakeholders in the decision-finding process to restore heritage.
- 4.
Remarkably, since 2005, Bamiyan province has had a female governor who has introduced cultural preservation and education as a pillar of the local development agenda. The central government expects thousands of returnees to the province in the coming years. The provision of suitable settlement areas remains one of the main challenges for the future. As observed from satellite images, in the last few years the amount of new constructions increased in the direct vicinity of the archaeological area without proper developmental control, underlying the need for long-term development and regulated urbanization plans.
- 5.
Editor’s note: Here, the conceptual difference between surface-oriented renderings (in this volume discussed by Gruen, also with a case-study of the Bamiyan Buddhas) and renderings on the basis of building research and archaeological surveys (Toubekis/Jansen, compare the contribution of Cunin) becomes evident. Interestingly, historic photographs from earlier documentations (compare Weiler) are also used, digitalized, and converted (transcribed) into virtual models. The question of how these renderings between the real and a desired condition of the archaeological site are also useful for the local community, which does not in most cases share the same technical knowledge in readings these interpretations, is another problem often ignored by ‘Western’ campaigns (compare Chermayeff in this volume).
- 6.
DAFA worked continuously in Bamiyan until the outbreak of World War II. Already in 1934 the first tourist guide for Bamiyan was published summarizing the scientific outcomes of the first missions, and was edited for an interested international audience. A notable detail here is that this tourist guide was also translated into the German language in 1939 (Hackin 1934; Hackin and Hackin 1939).
- 7.
A space of fifty square metres with a three metres by four metres projection screen was designed to be used by forty people at a time, and a standard stereoscopic setting was chosen using low cost polarized paper glasses. In order to realize the real-time rendering of the entire cliff scene including the niche of the eastern Buddha and the reconstructed 3D model within the limitation of the museum environment, the data had to be reduced significantly to a total amount of 200,000 triangles.
- 8.
Editor’s note: Predefined paths were, however, often a typically colonial strategy to convert a living site into a controllable ‘heritage site’ for tourist consumption (compare the contribution of Falser in this volume for the process of the making of the ‘Archaeological Park of Angkor’). Another question is what kind of story is told (or not told) in virtual guiding systems (compare Chermayeff in this volume) and who has access to or rests excluded from this information.
- 9.
The future of the destroyed Bamiyan Buddha figures has invoked various total reconstruction ideas, as well as a laser-light art concept. The discussion of these proposals mainly took place through various global platforms on the Internet, occasionally reflected in traditional media on the local level in Afghanistan. The distinction between action proposals and factual decisions too often communicated unclear and different attitudes towards the reality on the ground and ways the various interconnected ‘media realities’ could be experienced.
- 10.
In this field UNESCO has initiated the Convention on Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) and the Convention on Protection and Promotion of Diversity of Cultural Expression (2005).
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Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the German National Science Foundation (DFG) within the research cluster UMIC-Ultra High Speed Mobile Information and Communication established under the excellence initiative of the German government. We thank our colleagues Ralf Klamma and Mathias Jarke in the Information Science Department at RWTH Aachen University for many fruitful discussions. We also thank Prof. Minoru Inaba of the Institute for Research in Humanities at Kyoto University for making the contour line drawing of the giant Buddha available.
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Toubekis, G., Jansen, M. (2013). The Giant Buddha Figures in Afghanistan: Virtual Reality for a Physical Reconstruction?. In: Falser, M., Juneja, M. (eds) 'Archaeologizing' Heritage?. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35870-8_8
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