1 . My name is Arianna Traviglia and I’m a senior cultural and heritage researcher at the Centre for Cultural Heritage Technology at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, Italy.
As head of the team, I encourage the development of new technologies to maintain and protect important archaeological (考古学的) findings. Right now, I am working in the field of Pompeii, an ancient Roman city which was destroyed and buried under 13 to 20 feet of ash and small rocks during a volcanic eruption in 79 AD. With the help of a robot, I try to carefully reconstruct (重建) the city’s 2,000-year-old broken frescoes (壁画). The project is called RePAIR.
There are thousands of fresco pieces in Pompeii, and it was nearly impossible for a human to reconstruct all the irregular pieces into big, meaningful paintings in the past. Technology now allows us to do it-the robot we use is running by artificial intelligence (AI). As it examines a piece, it searches a database for a match, and then sends the data back to its hands to fit matching pieces together, saving a lot of hours. Its soft human-like arms and hands allow it to hold and examine the easily broken pieces without damaging them. The technology is likely to allow many museums around the world to reconstruct large-scale broken frescoes or similar objects in the future.
In RePAIR, I’m studying the hyperspectral (高光谱的) images of the fresco pieces in storage and comparing them with the paintings on the walls of the House of the Painters at Work, part of a building in Pompeii. By comparing the resemblances in the images, we will be able to work out whether the broken pieces were from the same wall.
I studied history and archaeology in college. Archaeology helps us understand where we come from, and technology enriches that exploration. I’m glad I’m a translator of the two worlds. My mind runs wild when I think about the exciting Roman life that we are still missing because Pompeii’s frescoes were damaged and haven’t been reconstructed.
1. What is the author mainly responsible for now?| A．Repairing the damaged archaeological findings. | B．Designing robots used for archaeology. |
| C．Discovering ancient cities hidden beneath the ground. | D．Reporting on recent studies of historical ruins. |
| A．It may cause further damage to artworks. | B．It takes more time to the examine the artworks. |
| C．It doesn’t need human operators. | D．It has already been widely used in museums. |
| A．Mistakes. | B．Similarities. | C．Damages. | D．Documents. |
| A．Dangerous. | B．Meaningful. | C．Relaxing. | D．Successful. |
