Unlikely Causes: The Technology of Heritage Preservation and Human Rights Movements
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A Global Heritage Fund team member working on a 3D scan at Banteay Chhmar, Cambodia. 
Craig Stennett/Global Heritage Fund
Today, preservationists are in a unique position: constantly racing against the clock to document, repair and maintain temples, structures, fortresses, and even human cultures, on the verge of collapse. What many of us don’t realize is that heritage is central to the human condition — it is what makes us human. Sadly many such sites are in danger of becoming too fragile to repair. So it stands that innovation in the technology industry is heritage’s best friend — allowing for duplication and preservation of the echoes of the past, far into the future.
In an age of heightened efficiency, innovation in the preservation industry is crucial. Age old processes which historically took countless hours and exhausted manpower reserves, are becoming easier than ever to complete, and complete quickly. We still document sites with hand drawings and archaeologists still uses shovels, trowels and brushes to excavate, but we have new tools today. Drones, 3-D scanning, GPS, satellite imagery and rectified photography are helping us document sites while modern materials and techniques are revolutionizing the conservation o structures. Recent advancements, such as the ability to more rapidly and accurately collect and process large amounts of data, are allowing organizations to document, analyze, and ultimately preserve important heritage sites around the world.
Non-profit organizations like Global Heritage Fund and CyArk are using high-tech tools like ground penetrating radar, LIDAR and drones to preserve heritage sites at a pace never before seen, and in remote corners of the world. The use of 3-D imaging tools at Banteay Chhmar, Cambodia – an endangered site among Cambodia’s top-listed sites for nomination to UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The ruin is one of the great architectural masterpieces of Southeast Asia and the Khmer Kingdom’s Angkorian Period, but lacking any conservation over the past 800 years, the temple complex has slowly collapsed and disintegrated.
Similarly, preservation of human rights is becoming an increasingly dangerous, remote and urgent job. In these cases, the AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program employs remote sensing, GPS and Internet mapping technologies to observe conflicts, track climate change and disease spread, as well as safeguard human rights across a multitude of countries and regions. For example, AAAS has been working with human rights groups on a three-pronged initiative in Syria. Using high tech satellite imagery, AAAS has been able to identify and investigate human rights-related reports stemming from the conflict in Aleppo. The technology was also used to document escalation of the conflict, focusing on damage and destruction of cultural sites and important medical facilities across the region, and also military movement and evidence of vehicles and equipment.
Technology is invaluable in a number of ways during the preservation process. It not only allows for accurate and precise iterations of an at-risk site, allowing preservationists to maintain it for generations to come, but it also allows the industry to focus on other aspects of the site, including on-boarding community volunteers, working with local governments, and reinvigorating stalled economies. And for global humanitarian efforts, technology allows for anticipation and research of conflict, and speedier deployment of human rights services and aid.
While advanced technology does not often make a cameo on the big screen in films about heritage and humanitarian crises, there is much at work behind the scenes. Preservationists in many countries, from the United States to Cambodia, are using these tools to preserve and protect what seems to be taken for granted the most in 2014: culture. It’s undeniable that there are few more real and tangible ways technology is helping to preserve our past while simultaneously ensuring it, and our ancestors, has a place in the future.
Vince Michael, PhD, is Executive Director of the Global Heritage Fund.
