Facsimile of the Throne Room from Nimrud Palace
Recorded in The British Museum, Pergamon Museum,
Princeton Art Museum, Harvard Scakler Art Museum and
Dresden Museum

Virtual view of the exhibition facsimile

Factum Arte is currently involved in the production of a facsímile of the eastern end of throne room of Ashurnasirpal II from his palace in Nimrud, Iraq.

The work has already involved scanning fragments in the British Museum, London, the Pergamon in Berlin, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden, The Sackler Collection at Harvard University and The Art Museum at Princeton University. A trip to record the fragments left on site in Nimrud and other known fragments in Mosul and Baghdad is currently being scheduled.

The Gold of Nimrud exhibition and Factum Arte´s Facsimile
Fifteen yeas ago Iraqi archaologists discovered a group of undisturbed royal graves in burial crypts under the floors of the vast Assyrian palace at Nimrud, now Mosul. The discoveries made in these queen's graves were sensational in several aspects, especially the enormous number of gold objects of exquisite quality. They will be shown for the first time within the framework of a major touring exhibition; the Gold of Nimrud. The exhibition has been organised by United Exhibits Group in collaboration with the Iraqi Ministry of Culture, the UNESCO, the Danish Government, Iraqi Cultural Projects Organisation (ICPO), and Factum Arte. The aim is to generate at least $10,000,000 to be used for the documentation and preservation of the cultural heritage of Iraq.

(see Art Newspaper report.PDF 261 Kb )

Factum Arte´s team working at night in Gallery 7, the British Museum London.

Three different scanning systems have been used for different purposes.

·Render from the 3D data of a whole panel from the British Museum (210x98 cm).

Hand-finishing the routed data recorded using the SETI scanner.

Part of the work Factum Arte is undertaking for this exhibition is the production of a 1:1 scale reconstruction of the eastern end of the throneroom of Ashurnasirpal II in Nimrud accurat to 100 microns. The reliefs that covered the walls of these rooms were removed in the C19th and are now in museums all over the world. For the first time since the palace was excavated by Sir Austin Henry Layard in 1848 all the known fragments will be reunited and presented as they would have been when Layard uncovered them.

3D DATA

This are some esample of the quality and the amount of data that factum has record from diferent locations. The possible aplications of this data for study porpouses gives a new tool for researchers all over the world

A rendering of Ashurnasirpal´s cuneiform standard inscription from the Pergamon Museum.

Magnification of a section of the text. The 3D data shows all the subtle details.

3D surface information of the object can be shown from different views and with different lighting to reveal all the surface detail.

3D data can be presented in many different ways. in this case is shown as a colour depth image.

Detail of 3D data showing the quality of the information recorded.

On the right the original winged lion, on the left the largest high resolution 3Dscanned facsimile.

The smallest details are essential for the realism of the facsimile. These are achieved by mixing the latest technology and pure craftmanship.

One of the winged lions from the British Museum asembled prior to moulding. The winged human headed lion is over 3 meters tall. It has been assembled with the carved carpet piece, also from the British museum.

The following links are for information
about the exhibition:

Art Newspaper report.PDF 261 Kb

The Art newspaper international.
April 2006 PDF 1.1MB