Curating a Digital Heritage Method for the Preservation of Arabian Rock Art (Petroglyphs)

Image caption: National Museum of Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates

The preservation and study of Arabian rock art — petroglyphs and inscriptions — has been seriously hampered by the fact that the vast majority of them have only begun to be published, have been poorly published with inadequate digital image quality, or have been published without full commentary in obscure books and academic journals in only a few libraries worldwide. This presentation details the processes involved in a digital heritage preservation method to make the study of prehistoric petroglyphs accessible to archaeologists, curators, historians, and epigraphers. The results of our processes are realistic 3D digital and physical replicas of the scanned images of museum artifacts from advanced light scanning and 3D printing methods. As such, our process describes a method of digital preservation, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), and on-demand reproduction of the digitally stored artifacts that can exhibit assemblages of prehistoric rock art to local communities today as their heritage.

• William Zimmerle, PhD, NYU Abu Dhabi, Senior Lecturer in Arts and Humanities, Archaeology and the Ancient World
• Rakesh Behera, PhD, New York University, Tandon School of Engineering, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Oraib Al Ketan, PhD, NYU Abu Dhabi, Research Instrumentation Scientist, Core Technology Platforms Operation