If they knock it down, we will rebuild it. If they knock it down again, we will rebuild it again

On March 29, 2015, as a side note to an article on the extent of the damage that ISIS militants inflicted on Palmyra, Syria, The New York Times published an article by Stephen Farrell (“If All Else Fails, 3D Models and Robots Might Rebuild Sites”) on the creation of precise three–dimensional digital models of Palmyrene monuments which could be used to reconstruct them if they were destroyed. In fact, right now in Carrara, Italy, robots are using digital information obtained from dozens of photographs to carve a scale replica of the 2nd century Roman triumphal arch that was destroyed in 2015. Roger L. Michel, Jr., founder and executive director of the Institute of Digital Archaeology is quoted as saying that, “If they knock it down, we will rebuild it. If they knock it down again, we will rebuild it again.” Tragically, as close as the replica might be to the original, it can never be the original.