Ancient Olympia will be digitally preserved

Ancient Olympia is to be preserved digitally, under a new deal between the Greek government and Microsoft.

The collaboration uses artificial intelligence to map the site and augmented reality to help restore the original Olympic Games site.

It will allow viewers to explore the region as it was more than 2,000 years ago.

Microsoft has ambitions to compete with Facebook with its own plans for the so-called metaverse.

It recently announced the Microsoft Teams metaverse for meetings and wants to turn Minecraft and the other games it owns into more immersive 3D worlds.

Its partnership with the Greek government allows visitors to visit the site remotely or in person using an augmented reality mobile application. At the Athens Olympic Museum, they can use HoloLens headsets to overlay a digital version of the site.

Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented reality smart glasses use multiple sensors, advanced optics and holograms to display information, blend into the real world or simulate a virtual world.

Among the 27 monuments to be preserved are the original Olympic stadium, the temples of Zeus and Hera and the workshop of the famous sculptor Phidias.

The buildings are as close to their original forms as possible and include historical timelines of the site’s changes over time, as well as depictions of objects from each period.

As part of its AI for Cultural Heritage initiative, Microsoft has partnered with technology company Iconem, which specializes in 3D digitization of historic sites.

Using ground-based cameras and drones to take hundreds of thousands of images of the site, Microsoft AI then processed the images to create models.

“The cultural implications of this technology are endless. For the first time, visitors from around the world can virtually visit the birthplace of democracy, the ancient site of Olympia, and experience history first-hand,” said the Prime Minister. Greek Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, said: “The Ancient Olympia Digital Preservation Project is an astonishing achievement in cultural heritage, bringing together humanity and cutting-edge technology for the benefit of the world and enabling future generations to new ways of exploring our past. ”