Japanese researchers have crafted a “super clone” of an Afghan mural destroyed by the Taliban, using a mix of traditional and digital techniques that they hope would salvage the work’s “spirit” for future generations.
Not a single fragment remains of the seventh-century cave painting demolished in 2001, along with two massive Buddha statues and other artefacts in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley, sparking global condemnation.
However, a precise replica, the result of three years of state-of-the-art reproduction efforts, went on display at a museum in Tokyo in September and last month, just weeks after the Taliban returned to power in Kabul.
Photo: AFP
The mural on the ceiling of a cave near the famous statues depicted a blue Bodhisattva — or someone on the path to becoming a Buddha.
At 6m long and 3m high, the intricate full-size copy has been dubbed a “super clone” by the reproduction team at Tokyo University of the Arts.
“We have succeeded in recreating a very precise representation in three dimensions,” from its texture to the type of paint, team coleader Takashi Inoue said.
The team digitally processed more than 100 photographs taken by Japanese archeologists of the mural before it was desecrated, to create a computerized model of its surface.
They then fed these data into a machine, which carved the exact shape into a Styrofoam block.
To complete the replica, artists applied a traditional paint in a lapis lazuli shade similar to the one used for the original mural.
Through this process, “we can reproduce designs that are very close to the real ones again and again, to hand down their spirit to future generations,” said Inoue, a professor specialized in Eurasian cultural heritage.
For historian Kosaku Maeda, a coleader of the Tokyo reproduction team, the “massively shocking” images of the giant Buddhas disappearing into clouds of dust are still a vivid memory.
“I was worried that such an act would be inflicted on the remains once again,” said the 88-year-old, who has visited the valley repeatedly over more than 50 years.
However, their work shows that vandalism is “meaningless” in the face of modern technology, as “everything can be digitalized,” Maeda added.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS