The documentation of ecclesiastical cultural heritage sites in Cyprus

Abstract

Innovative digital applications are invaluable for the documentation and conservation of cultural heritage monuments. Digital techniques can provide data on cultural heritage sites to enhance understanding of their changes over time. Due to the age and conditions of cultural heritage monuments in Cyprus, especially churches, there is a great demand to develop a methodology that is capable of digitizing both the internal and external church using a variety of non-invasive techniques as a means of storing and managing documentation data and metadata for providing comprehensive culturally digital and documentation evidence. In this paper, the integration of various technologies was used to document the 12th century St. Efstathios Chapel in Kolossi, Cyprus. The methodologies included data acquired by close-range images from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and hand-held cameras, coordinates from ground control points using Total Stations etc., to document both the internal and external facades and relics of selected religious monuments. Thousands of images from the monument were taken using a UAV with a high-resolution camera. The images were processed using photogrammetry to provide a digital model of the church. The use of the HSV color model was used to examine potential anomalies in the structure. The combination of the technologies will provide a 3D model to document and identify ecclesiastical cultural heritage sites, which can be incorporated into a dynamic database and valuable resource to better understand the cultural heritage monument. In this way, the end-users will be able to access the information from the digital platform at any time. This research is supported by the project entitled: “Navigators of Cultural Heritage Digitization of Churches of Cyprus and Crete” referred as “Digital unblocking of holy islands” and is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)and by national funds of Greece and Cyprus, under the Cooperation Programme “INTERREG V-A Greece-Cyprus 2014-2020”.