Project
Zamani Project

Project Director
Heinz Rüther, University of Cape Town

Project URL
https://zamaniproject.org

Project Reviewer
Rosabelle Boswell, Nelson Mandela University

Project Overview

Heinz Ruther

The Zamani Research Group, based at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, aims to capture spatial data of heritage sites to create a permanent digital record of important monuments and their immediate environments for future generations and for restoration and conservation interventions, while developing spatial documentation methods and standards. The group further seeks to provide material for education, research, and site management and to increase international awareness of tangible, cultural heritage. 

Spatial data of architectural structures and historical landscapes are acquired by means of laser scanning, conventional surveys, GPS surveys, and structure from motion. Satellite images, aerial photography and full-dome panorama photography are also employed, as are contextual photography and videos. The data are captured by the project team during field campaigns. The acquired data are processed to produce geographic information systems (GIS); 3D computer models, maps, architectural sections, and building plans; and interactive panorama tours of the heritage sites. Sites are seen in the context of their physical environment and therefore landscapes surrounding sites are modeled in 3D using satellite and aerial imagery wherever possible. Virtual reality (VR) walkthroughs with ArcGIS StoryMaps are also used to showcase the data produced.

Over the past 17 years, Ruther and his team has collaborated internationally with UNESCO, Getty, the World Monuments Fund, EPIC Games, and independent researchers to document over 250 structures in 18 countries. Some of the sites documented include the rock hewn structures of Petra, Jordan; the Valley of the Queens in Luxor, Egypt; the Churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia; and the Wonderwerk cave in South Africa. Currently a VR tour of Petra is being created with funding from EPIC Games. The Zamani Project also collaborated with DeMax TV (Germany) to document the House of Wonders in Zanzibar. Researchers have access to the material through direct contact with the principal investigator or through the ZivaHUB Portal at the University of Cape Town.

Scholarship based on the Zamani Project has been widely published in journals such as Africa Geo, African Arts, and the South African Journal of Geomatics. The Zamani Project has also been covered by a range of media outlets including CNN, Independent Online, and Le Monde.

Project Review

Rosabelle Boswell

The Zamani Project is a digital heritage project that seeks to document sites of archaeological value and tangible heritage interest in a virtual, interactive format. Located on a secure server at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, the Zamani Project seeks to conserve and offer visual access to African monuments and sites on the continent. In the current archive, more than 50 such sites are captured and presented, providing an excellent view of African tangible heritage that may otherwise not be easily accessible to researchers, historical and cultural specialists, and tourists and citizens of the world. It also offers a unique opportunity for educators to engage with the history and heritage of Africa for educational purposes. 

Given that the Zamani Project seeks to conserve and represent tangible heritage in a digitized format, its aims and outcomes can be assessed in relation to the provisions and requirements of the UNESCO’s Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage and its Memory of the World (MoW) Programme. Briefly, the charter considers “digital heritage” to encompass cultural heritage materials converted from analog into digital form, while MoW seeks to document and safeguard documentary knowledges and stories of human creativity. A specific requirement of the charter is that digitized knowledge forms remain accessible to communities from which they arise, while a concern of the MoW is safeguarding forms of human cultural knowledge at risk of being destroyed. By digitally conserving tangible cultural heritage in sites as diverse as the Berber village in Lemzyen, Algeria or the Lamu Fort in Kenya, the Zamani Project facilitates global, online access to sites of significant heritage value.  

The tangible heritage documentation offered by Zamani is extraordinary and is aligned with similar practices of digital architectural heritage conservation implemented by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). Encountering Munish Pandit of ICOMOS in 2019, I learned that through similar processes of digital heritage conservation, citizens can virtually access historical sites, impacted by modernization or the passage of time. In Pandit’s work, the digital heritage is presented in holographic form, enabling a surreal engagement with a once analogue and tangible artifact. 

Both the European Commission and the African Union have regional strategies for the conservation of tangible heritage in digital form. This suggests that projects like Zamani, are well placed for “new” formats of presenting and conserving cultural heritage. But as an anthropologist who is passionate about intangible cultural heritage (ICH) and bearing in mind UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, I perceive a more scintillating future for the Zamani Project. It could be significantly enriched and rendered more authentic and accessible to its original creators and future investors if it included ICH. 

By including site-specific ICH data sets in the form of songs, stories, visuals of local communities, recipes, sounds, and other ICH ephemera, the Zamani Project could become more holistic, locally accessible, and multidimensional, even sensorial. This is especially the case for the Berber village of Lemzyen in Algeria and the Old Fort of Lamu, Kenya. In the former, there is a rich tradition of storytelling and music-making, as well as unique culinary heritage that signals a millennium of shared creativity across North Africa and the Mediterranean. For Lamu, Kenya, there is the beautiful history of centuries old creolization in the blending of languages, aural heritages, and the visceral accounts of trade and exchange noted in letters, stories, songs, and shared ritual practices. If the Zamani project could therefore extend to include the digitization of ICH, it would be in the enviable position of meeting the tricky requirements of both accessibility and authenticity in heritage conservation — even if the best option would be to visit the sites in person and experience them first hand.