Level 4 Reading 9A

Reading 9A

VIRTUALLY IMMORTAL After the long, dusty drive from the city, the first surprises that visitors encounter are the shade trees and the beautiful green lawn. Then they notice the birds and monkeys swooping in and out of the trees. After passing through the entrance gate, a long stone pathway leads to a place where the ground begins to open up. There, on the far side of the grass, is what seems to be a magnificent temple built in a huge hole in the ground. However, it is not a temple, but a well. This is Rani ki Vav—the Queen's Stepwell. The weather is dry most of the year in northwestern India. Then, during the summer, rain arrives suddenly and seeps down through the sandy soil. Centuries ago, people dug holes to get at the water, and then built stone stairways down where the water collected. These stepwells were simple at first, but some later became architectural works of art. Rani ki Vav is among the most magnificent. Located near the Saraswati River in Gujarat, Rani ki Vav was built late in the 11th century by Queen Udayamati as a memorial to her dead king. It was rarely used, and by 1300, seasonal floods had filled it with sand. Not until the 1960s did Indian archeologists begin digging it out. Witnesses were stunned by what was hidden beneath all that sand. Preserving the Past "We've seen photographs, but nothing compares with seeing it firsthand," says Lyn Wilson, an archeological scientist from Glasgow. With the latest in digital scanning technology, she and her colleagues from the Centre for Digital Documentation and Visualisation aim to reduce the chances that Rani ki Vav—or at least the data describing it—will ever be lost again. Of all the projects they have undertaken—from the Standing Stones of Stenness to Mount Rushmore— this is among the most difficult. By 12:30 p.m., their equipment arrives. As team members open the boxes, they meet their first challenge: two buses full of Indian schoolboys on a class trip. They crowd around Wilson as though she's a Bollywood star. A guard gently directs them to move back with a long stick. For the next two weeks, the team will have to fight the heat and cope with curious crowds while they aim laser beams at every surface of the stepwell in order to record the entire structure digitally. Should Rani ki Vav be lost again—through floods, war, earthquakes, or just the passage of time— there will be a precise 3-D copy available on the Internet.

Inside the Vav A tour of the well reveals some of the extremely complex carvings the team must record. On a lower level, seven sculptures of the four-armed god Vishnu decorate the walls. Lord Kalki sits tall on a horse, one foot about to crush an enemy's head. Then there's Varaha, a god with the head of a boar. A tiny goddess standing on his shoulder lovingly rubs his nose. "It reminds me of the wonderful Hollywood movie King Kong," remarks K.C. Nauriyal, an Indian archeologist working at the site. Also immortalized in stone are the Hindu gods Brahma and Shiva. Scattered among the gods slither snakes and creatures called Naga Kanya that are half-snake, half-woman. There are also apsaras— female spirits of the clouds and water—putting on lipstick or earrings, gazing at mirrors, or drying their hair. One of them playfully strikes a monkey as it pulls down her garment. Another pulls on the beard of an admiring beggar. "The spice of life," Nauriyal calls them. But one wrong blow with a hammer and their beauty would be destroyed forever. A stairway leads to the lowest levels, and a dark passage into the well itself. Near the bottom of the well are two statues of the god Vishnu. One is sleeping on the back of a large snake, and the other is sitting straight up. There was a belief that if there were two statues of Lord Vishnu in this form, the water would never dry up—but it did. Agricultural development and a warmer climate are two likely causes. And, like the water, the sculptures may one day disappear, surviving perhaps only as a virtual model online. A Digital Copy Inside a tent at the edge of the stepwell, archeologist Justin Barton assembles the first pieces of the 3-D digital image of Rani ki Vav. Weirdly colored columns and lintels appear on the screen. The colors—greenish in the brightest areas, grading to oranges and yellows— indicate reflectivity, or how readily the laser comes bouncing back. Barton grabs the images with the cursor, swinging them around like a child's building blocks, fitting each into the larger model of Rani ki Vav. Back in Glasgow, the digital copy will be completed, ultimately joining more than a hundred others already in a computer database. But that's barely the beginning. "So much heritage is being lost on a daily basis," says Barton, "through war and human aggression, environmental changes, and the wear and tear of time." Barton and his colleagues are in a race to digitally preserve for future generations as many of the world's threatened archeological treasures as they can—before they disappear forever. THE SCOTTISH TEN The expedition to Rani ki Vav is part of the Scottish Ten— a digital preservation project, initiated by the government in Scotland, which aims to produce 3-D digital copies of 10 cultural sites. The Scottish Ten includes the following UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Rani ki Vav (India) Mount Rushmore (U.S.A.) Eastern Qing Tombs (China) Sydney Opera House (Australia) Nagasaki Giant Cantilever Crane (Japan) New Lanark, Neolithic Orkney, St. Kilda, Edinburgh, and Antonine Wall (all in Scotland)

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