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Bengaluru: How a team uses digital tools to preserve history for posterity

Using tools to verify something that occurred centuries ago might seem like a near impossible task
Last Updated 19 May 2023, 22:09 IST

Using tools to verify something that occurred centuries ago might seem like a near impossible task. But a team of conservationists in Bengaluru have taken up the task of not just verifying, but digitally preserving some of the earliest records of local history for posterity.

Udayakumar P L and his team at the Mythic Society's Inscriptions 3D Digital Conservation Project have been working to digitally preserve inscription stones across the city.

Since 2017, when Udayakumar first began working in this regard, nearly 1,500 inscriptions across the three districts — Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural and Ramanagara — have been identified. Many of these inscriptions have been recorded digitally by scanning and producing high-resolution 3D models.

An inscription stone identified in Kodigehalli records the donation of land to a temple on a solar eclipse day back in 1429. “Donations during eclipses are considered more auspicious and beneficial for the donor, which is why it was very common,” says Udayakumar. This was also why eclipses featured in inscriptions, acting as a receipt complete with the location and time recorded in stone, he adds.

Udayakumar notes that hundreds of inscriptions could be laying in plain sight waiting to be discovered. In nearly 40 per cent of the cases in the city, inscriptions are lost or discovered broken, misplaced or repurposed into something else, he says.

"Our project is about making sure we stop the loss," says Udayakumar, adding that the natural flaking of stones over hundreds of years is another reason why digital preservation of stones is necessary.

After identifying and recording an inscription, they also raise awareness about the inscription among people in the area it was found. “The focus is not on the discovery, it’s on what happens after discovery,” he says.

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(Published 19 May 2023, 21:18 IST)

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