Roman Agora of Athens
Ancient Athens 3D is a project that presents, through artistic representations in three dimensions (photographs and videos), how were the imposing monuments and the beautiful buildings of the capital of Greece from the Mycenaean period (1600 BC) until the modern times (1833 AD).
Apart from the periods already mentioned, this virtual tour immerses us in the ** archaic, classical, Hellenistic, Roman, medieval and Ottoman Athens. **
These stages show us architectural and urban changes most relevant monuments of the Greek capital throughout history, with each of the monuments having a short description along with its 3D reconstruction.
The Parthenon
Dimitris Tsalkanis has gone to great lengths to create these realistic reconstructions, consulting in advance archaeological and architectural publications and research with the purpose of adjust to reality back then as much as possible.
"In 2007 he was experimenting with 3D software and as he had never seen a complete digital reconstruction of Ancient Athens in different historical periods, I began to create some models of monuments”, Dimitris explains to Traveler.es.
It was like that, without even realizing it, about a year later, he had managed to rebuild much of the city , which prompted him to decide to share his work through the website he named Ancient Athens 3D.
According to the digital artist, who studied Fine Arts and Art History and made a Master in Visual Effects, users who visit your wonderful website must take into account the limits of the technology and the possible findings, which lead to a small margin of error in the representations.
“The reconstructions they cannot be 100% accurate. There are many monuments of which we know very little (or almost nothing) about what they were like. In these cases, it is inevitable to use the imagination, but always based on archaeological and historical facts , he confesses to Traveler.es.
The Odeon of Agrippa
"Unfortunately, as it is a personal project without funding from other institutions, development and subsequent updates take longer to materialize, since everything depends on my free time available”, explains Dimitris.
Bearing this in mind, the purpose of Ancient Athens 3D is to give the visitor the opportunity to take a look at the past of Athens, and the experience is worth it, we can attest to that. Despite the technical and time limits that are frequently presented to the artist, he recognizes that ** being able to develop this initiative has been very gratifying and enriching: **
“My work is being used in many universities, schools, museums and publications. Furthermore, during these years I have learned many things about the past of Athens that I was unaware of, as well as theoretical questions regarding digital reconstructions in correlation with archaeology”, he comments.
Although it is an arduous task for Dimitris to opt for a favorite recreation , he reveals to us that he really enjoyed bringing (digital) life to the Hadrian Library, for which he had the collaboration of Chrysanthos Kanellopoulos, professor of archeology at the University of Athens. And you, dear traveler, which one do you prefer?