Its creator has called it a “virtual time machine” — a digital reconstruction of ancient Rome that became available to Internet users around the world this week.
Users of Google Earth can now see the city, down to the last aqueduct and arena, as it looked at noon on April 1 320AD. They can navigate through the Forum, past the platform or rostra from which Cicero once declaimed, admire the statues, read the inscriptions, pry into palaces, and then slip round to the Colosseum or whisk over to the Circus Maximus where the ancient Romans held their chariot races.
There, the virtual traveler will find not the slightly disappointing, enormous oval expanse of grass that confronts the real tourist, but the huge, walled stadium that they are forced to conjure up from their imagination.
It is the “Rome of [the emperor] Constantine in which everything is new”, said Google Earth’s chief technologist, Michael Jones, at the presentation in Rome’s city hall. “It’s new. It’s modern. It’s beautiful.”
Some 6,700 digitally recreated structures have gone towards making up the latest “layer,” which can be superimposed on Google Earth’s images of the city. Ten of the buildings, including monuments such as the Colosseum, can be entered so users can marvel at the architecture and even gaze on details like marble floors,.
The first concerted effort to recreate the ancient imperial capital was made by Italian architect Italo Gismondi. Three years before his death in 1974 he finished a vast plaster model of ancient Rome in 1:250 scale now in the city’s Museo della Civilta Romana.
Gismondi’s research played an important role in the project, begun in 1997 by Bernard Frischer, a teacher at the University of Virginia (UVA). After 10 years of collaboration between UVA, the University of California, Los Angeles and Milan’s Politecnico, Rome Reborn — made up of 50 million polygons (the building blocks of 3D computer graphics) — was unveiled last year.
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un renewed his call for a “limitless” expansion of his military nuclear program to counter US-led threats in comments reported yesterday that were his first direct criticism toward Washington since US president-elect Donald Trump’s electoral victory on Oct. 6. At a conference with army officials on Friday, Kim condemned the US for updating its nuclear deterrence strategies with South Korea and solidifying three-way military cooperation involving Japan, which he portrayed as an “Asian NATO” that was escalating tensions and instability in the region. Kim also criticized the US over its support of Ukraine against a prolonged Russian invasion.
Texas’ education board on Friday voted to allow Bible-infused teachings in elementary schools, joining other Republican-led US states that pushed this year to give religion a larger presence in public classrooms. The curriculum adopted by the Texas State Board of Education, which is controlled by elected Republicans, is optional for schools to adopt, but they would receive additional funding if they do so. The materials could appear in classrooms as early as next school year. Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott has voiced support for the lesson plans, which were provided by the state’s education agency that oversees the more than
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