Google Maps, Lasers Reveal Vatican Catacombs

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday November 19, 2013 @07:14PM from the lasers-will-reveal-a-lot-of-things-if-used-correctly dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "The Vatican, while notoriously secretive about things buried in its vaults and archives, is being as public as the digital age allows it to be about the nearly completed restoration of catacombs early Christians used as secret churches as well as burial sites. Contractors, archaeologists and art experts spent the past five years restoring the Priscilla catacombs under the Vatican using lasers, among other techniques, to restore frescoes painted on the walls of the burial chambers. The Vatican unveiled the work Nov. 19 with a press conference in the Basilica of San Silvestro outside the burial tunnels, accompanied by a virtual tour of the Priscilla catacombs provided by Google Maps. The basilica is divided into an area for religious services and another that acts as a deposit for sculptures and artifacts dug up during excavations of the catacombs and other areas underneath the Vatican."

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Took the virtual tour, could clearly see graffiti by volvox_voxel · 2013-11-19 19:56 · Score: 5, Interesting

I wandered around via the virtual tour, but all the shelves were empty. .. I wonder what happened to the remains? It was curious to read the graffiti of names and dates, and the ancient signs on the wall but wasn't able to recognize all the writing, It looked like their was more than one language used for the official lettering. I saw dates like 1862, 1920, 1952, etc . Graffiti has been a part of human experience for a long time, and is one way historians can estimate how literate the average population was of an ancient civilization.. Did you know that we have access to the words and thoughts of the citizens of Pompeii and Herculaneum?