DIGITAL APOSPHRAGISMA

Project Title: The Digital Aposphragisma project, new methods and approaches to the digitization of ecclesiastical cultural heritage of Cyprus and Crete
Coordinator: Holy Bishopric of Limassol
Type of funding: European
Funding source: Interreg VA Greece – Cyprus 
Dates: January 2019 - July 2022
Project website

Description: The Digital Aposphragisma of Hagionymous Islands project was led by the Holy Bishopric of Limassol and has been materialized with the collaboration of the Holy Archbishopric of Crete, the Cyprus Institute (STARC/APAC, Science and Technology in Archaeology and Culture Research Center and Andreas Pittas Art Characterization Labs), the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT, Department of Civil Engineering and Geomatics), the Foundation of Research and Technology (FORTH, Center of Cultural Informatics) and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Heraklion in Crete. An interregional collaboration project supported by the INTERREG-VA 2014-2020 Cyprus - Greece.

The aim was the establishment of a novel approach for the adoption of a holistic ecclesiastical cultural heritage management system, which involved the collaboration of church officials educated in digital technology adoption strategies, cultural heritage (CH) technologists, architects specializing in the restoration of ancient monuments, surveyors with expertise in GIS database infrastructure and archaeologists. 

The project involved the interdisciplinary study of CH documentation procedures for the long-term digitization and preservation of ecclesiastical cultural heritage. In addition, the project aimed to use a novel methodology that integrates 2D and 3D image documentation, along with 4D metadata/paradata digitalisation, Ropertos collected data in-situ in order to record, streamline and disseminate packages of highly technical digitization procedures for the digital acquisition and documentation of CH assets.

For this purpose, APAC Labs, as partner in the project, documented a wide variety of ecclesiastical cultural artefacts from paintings to liturgical objects and monuments spanning 1000 years of history (Byzantine, Medieval, Ottoman and Modern period).  The applied methodological approach concerned the multi-level documentation of such objects and monuments. In parallel this project initiated a new challenge, which lies between two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) images and sensor-based technologies for the documentation and visualization of ecclesiastical object typologies. APAC’s digital imaging objective was to record and document CH objects. Researchers and technical experts used a novel methodology that integrates 2D and 3D image documentation, along with 4D metadata/para data digitalisation collected data in situ.

Methods of digital acquisition included an array of approaches in the 2D and 3D domain of image and sensor-based capture such as 2D high-resolution conservation photography, 2D Medium and Large Format photography and scanning (MF, LF), 360-degree spherical panoramic photography, multispectral imaging (MSI), Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), 3D Photogrammetry - Structure from Motion (SfM), 3D laser scanning and Infrared Reflectography (IRR). Digital recording approaches were based on international standards for such practices supported by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS), CIPA Heritage Documentation, the American Institute of Conservation (AIC), Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) and the IPTC Information Interchange Model (IIM)