Tourists at the Acropolis this holiday season can witness the resolution of one of the world’s most heated debates on cultural heritage.
Tourists at the Acropolis this holiday season can witness the resolution of one of the world’s most heated debates on cultural heritage.
All they need is a smartphone.
Visitors can now pinch and zoom their way around the ancient Greek site, with a digital overlay showing how it once looked. That includes a collection of marble sculptures removed from the Parthenon more than 200 years ago that are now on display at the British Museum in London. Greece has demanded they be returned.
For now, an app supported by Greece’s Culture Ministry allows visitors to point their phones at the Parthenon temple, and the sculptures housed in London appear back on the monument as archaeologists believe they looked 2,500 years ago.
Other, less widely known features also appear: Many of the sculptures on the Acropolis were painted in striking colors. A statue of goddess Athena in the main chamber of the Parthenon also stood over a shallow pool of water.
“That’s really impressive … the only time I’ve seen that kind of technology before is at the dentist,” Shriya Parsotam Chitnavis, a tourist from London, said after checking out the app on a hot afternoon at the hilltop Acropolis, Greece’s most popular archaeological site.
“I didn’t know much about the (Acropolis), and I had to be convinced to come up here. Seeing this has made it more interesting—seeing it in color,” she said. “I’m more of a visual person, so this being interactive really helped me appreciate it.”
The virtual restoration works anywhere and could spare some visitors the crowded uphill walk and long wait to see the iconic monuments up close.
