Imagination, creativity, novelty, artificial intelligence has reconstructed what Pompeii looked like before the terrible eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.
A vision of the city in some ways approaching reality, in others much less so.
And the Pompeii Archaeological Park itself curiously wanted to ask artificial intelligence to reconstruct the ancient city in a Pixar cartoon movie.
And the result in some images is far from convincing. Cars moving through stone-paved streets, buildings interpreted in a more modern key than those reconstructed by archaeologists.
A vision of the ancient city that many users do not like and turn their noses up at.
The Archaeological Park, in fact, shows images of the research on its facebook profile and comments are not slow in coming. Many do not see Pompeii at all in the images made by artificial intelligence, others note the lack of colors and details that ancient Pompeians left us.
Photos Archaeological Park of PompeiiIn short, a vision of Pompeii that we are not used to and that the archaeologists themselves have shown us during all these years of research.
A conception that is too fanciful, too modern, and not very relevant to the Pompeii that pleases, fascinates, and attracts millions of tourists from all over the world every year.
Rebuilt a domus in Pompeii with artificial intelligence
This is not the first time artificial intelligence has been asked to reconstruct a part of Pompeii.
It has happened before with researchers at the University of Lund (Sweden), who reconstructed in great detail the interior of a house in Pompeii.
This was the house of the wealthy Caecilius Iucundus. In this case, however, in the reconstruction the details of the central hall with the basin for collecting rainwater ( the so-called impluvium) were perfectly reconstructed. The ‘domestic altar with all its wonderful frescoes depicting the earthquake that affected Pompeii in 62 AD.
The garden with all its wonderful fountains, the frescoes on the walls in the other rooms of the domus.
In short, a reconstruction in this case perfect, meticulous, corresponding to reality that showed all the details of the house, unlike the reproduction of Pompeii.
So artificial intelligence is not always wrong, but it is also able to contribute positively to the right interpretation.
RePair Project
Not surprisingly, in recent years the Pompeii Archaeological Park has launched a new project called RePair. Which uses digital and a series of robots to reconstruct fragments of frescoes, mosaics, and amphorae that cannot be reconstructed manually because they are too small. These robots with mechanical arms are able to scan the fragments, recognize and reconstruct them, giving new life to a part of Pompeii’s history that could not be reconstructed by humans.
So even if the overly imaginative reproduction given by artificial intelligence in the reconstruction of Pompeii was not perfect, it can also be overcome since in many cases it is able to go where man cannot.
