This research and educational project aimed to create virtual 3-D walkthroughs of four principal buildings from the Princeton University excavations at Polis Chrysochous, Cyprus. The structures date from the Cypro-Archaic period beginning in the 7th century BCE to the Late Antique period of the 7th century CE. The project was conceived together with a special exhibition, a long-term exhibition in Cyprus, and a presentation on the web. In a joint Computer Science and Art and Archaeology seminar in the spring of 2012, students created reconstructions and populated them with 3-D scanned objects. The challenge was to find appropriate visual metaphors for conveying uncertainty and change in these 3-D visualizations as well as to create a computer-animated movie focused on the buildings, their spatial relationships, and possible reconstructions consistent with the excavations.

@inproceedings{Smith:2012:MTP,
   author = "Joanna Smith and Szymon Rusinkiewicz",
   title = "Modeling the Past: Digital Technologies and Excavations in {Polis},
      {Cyprus}",
   booktitle = "LNCS 7616 (Proc. EuroMed)",
   year = "2012",
   month = oct,
   pages = "414--422"
}