Ms. Tania Kleynhans (RIT) presented at the Techne Summit that was held in Dubrovnik

May 7, 2019

Further to the visit of our colleagues from Rochester regarding the Manuscript project, Ms. Tania Kleynhans presented a paper on the topic "Technology to Preserve Dubrovnik's Cultural Heritage" at the Techne Summit that was held in Dubrovnik on May 4 and 5.

Techne Summit is an international multi-industry focused investment & entrepreneurship event that aims to impact multiple sectors and stakeholders of the startup communities in the Mediterranean region through showcasing different technologies and their application in each industry.

Modern technologies, especially those involving imaging, have been used in the last two decades to recover formerly "lost" cultural heritage. Perhaps the best-known example is writings by the ancient Greek mathematician in the "Archimedes Palimpsest," which was erased and overwritten with a Christian prayerbook in 1229 CE. The original writings in that book included the only known copy of the "Method of Mechanical Theorems," where Archimedes derived the principles of integral calculus nearly two millennia before Newton and Leibnitz. Other examples of recovery of cultural heritage include a medical textbook by Galen, erased writings at St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai, and a c.1491 map of the world by Henricus Martellus Germanus.

The authors have significant experience in applying modern imaging technologies to recover the cultural heritage already listed. We propose that such work has the potential to encourage "academic tourism," defined as visits to libraries and other depositories by academics interested in discovering cultural heritage. Though such a goal would be perhaps easier to achieve in cases where discoveries have already been made, but the well-known sciences libraries and archives in Zagreb and Dubrovnik Croatia would be excellent places to start looking. Smaller libraries in monasteries and local villages also hold the promise of potentially significant discoveries.

About Tania Kleynhans:

Tania Kleynhans received a Bachelors degree in Mathematics and Operational Research from the University of South Africa, and an M.S. in Imaging Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Currently, Tania Kleynhans is an Associate Scientist at the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, RIT. She leads the Rochester Cultural Heritage Imaging, Visualization and Education group (R-CHIVE) and is responsible for the organization of the R-CHIVE conferences and workshops, assisting student research and coordinating collaboration efforts. She assists in various research projects with involvement in measuring ink and material spectra and research on application of algorithms to satellite imagery. Tania is doing her PhD part time on hyperspectral image analysis of illuminated manuscripts and paintings.

Read more at : https://dbv.technesummit.com/