Artist Uses 3D Printing to Preserve Antiquities Lost to ISIS

We’ve posted before about artists using 3D Scanning and Printing to recreate antiquities damaged by ISIS and to digitally catalog priceless exhibits.  Another effort is being undertaken by an Iranian artist in Mosul, Iraq.

Morrehshin Allhyari is working on an exhibition of 3D printed replicas of artifacts destroyed at the Nineveh Museum in Mosul, Iraq by ISIS. Taking images and 3D scans of the museum’s collection, Morrehshin is able to replicate the lost artifacts with 3D printers: “The more files that are saved on people’s computers, even if they’re never printed, the number of PDF files that are read or kept, the more that history that was initially removed by ISIS will be saved.” The exhibition is titled “Material Speculation” and is widely seen as an act of historic preservation, political activism, and art, simultaneously. It also makes a great point of the pragmatism of using 3D scanning and printing technology for museum collections and historic exhibitions.