20 Apr Adventures in Proximal Places: Same as the Real Thing?
This chariot is an exact replica of one found in King Tutankhamen’s tomb. It—and the forensic reconstruction of the king—was created by artist Craig Yanek as part of the Milwaukee Public Museum’s exhibit “Crossroads of Civilization: Ancient Worlds of the Near East and Mediterranean.” ©Milwaukee Public Museum
When I was growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, a family trip to the Milwaukee Public Museum was a very special event. On the 90-minute car ride into the “big city,” we kids would eagerly anticipate the worlds we were about to explore: one where colossal dinosaurs fought battles—carefully staged under the museum’s dramatic lighting—or one that took you through a facsimile of an Egyptian tomb, with real Egyptian mummies—under glass—placed strategically along the way.
Of course, the world of the dinosaurs is long gone and the tombs of ancient Egypt are more than 6,000 miles away from downtown Milwaukee. As children, we figured that we would most likely never be able to see the real things; so visiting these reconstructions was extremely satisfying to our spirits of adventure.
But does that sense of adventure fulfillment carry over if you tour a replica that is situated right on top of or next to the real thing?
Cave clones
This diorama titled “Bison Hunt on Horseback” is in the North American Indians wing at the Milwaukee Public Museum. ©Milwaukee Public Museum
Located 45 minutes outside of Aubenas in France, on a limestone plateau of the meandering Ardeche River in the Rhone Valley, is the Decorated Cave of Pont d’Arc (also known as Grotte Chauvet-Pont d’Arc, Ardeche). The cave holds more than 1,000 prehistoric paintings that are more than 30,000 years old—twice the age of the famous Lascaux cave paintings. Inducted as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2014, the landmark has been closed indefinitely in order to protect its invaluable treasures.
After it became clear that the cave would never be made accessible to the general public, the idea of a facsimile reconstruction emerged; and in the April 2015 issue of National Geographic Traveler, it was reported that a full-size replica of the Decorated Cave of Pont d’Arc had opened. But this was a reproduction on the scale of which the Milwaukee Public Museum of my childhood could only dream.
Scientists used 3-D models and scans to create carbon copies of the cave’s exact dimensions. They even mimicked the site’s acoustics, humidity and temperature—providing a familiar habitat on the new “cave’s” fake rock walls for the hand-etched copies of the bears, bison and mammoths that roam the real thing.
The kicker is that this replica wasn’t built 6,000 miles away. It’s located just next door to the original.
Reproductions in real places
Building replicas to take the places of the real, precious things, in fact, is the business of the California-based nonprofit CyArk, whose mission is to preserve cultural heritage sites around the world.
Would climbing an exact replica of El Capitan give you the same thrill as climbing the real thing? ©John T. Andrews
CyArk’s co-founder, Ben Kacyra, was born in Northern Iraq. Some of his fondest childhood memories are of visiting ruins on the outskirts of his town with his father, who would tell him stories of the ancient Assyrian Empire. Those memories and treasures were on his mind in 2001, when he learned that the Taliban had destroyed the 1,600-year-old Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan.
Kacyra believes that being able to re-create historical and cultural sites around the world that have been devastated or destroyed by natural disasters, population growth, terrorism, war and the ravages of time is critical. So he founded the nonprofit CyArk, which uses cutting-edge laser scanners to capture billions of data points on historical structures, which then can be turned into everything from precise architectural drawings to video-game environments to full-scale reconstructions. The Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Kampala, Uganda, was rebuilt by CyArk on the original grounds when some of the major buildings were burned down by suspected arsonists in 2010.
So far, CyArk has documented about 60 sites, but Kacyra’s dream is to digitally preserve 500 sites within the next five years.
“There,” but not quite
While visiting such realistic reproductions in their real locations could be considered little different from experiencing the originals, I do think there might be slight, intangible distinctions. Imagine the chills you’d get standing in that exact spot an ancient painter once did 30,000 years ago, when the artistic muse hit. Would you get the same thrill from standing several feet away?
A virtual experience is great at providing some of the same benefits of the real thing, when doing the real thing is physically impossible. But when you are actually “there,” are re-creations a perfect substitute? If you climbed an almost flawless replica of Yosemite’s El Capitan that was located right next to it, would you receive the same pleasure as if you had climbed the real one?
Here’s to your adventures, in whatever corner of the world you find them,
Candy
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