Over the course of almost 22 hours, I built the city through trial and error, which included hundreds of columns and the texturing process. I relied on primary and secondary literature, previously produced maps, and present-day imagery, as well as some artistic license where data was lacking in tandem with the software’s tools to gradually build the city. This focus came about with my discovery of CityEngine and wanting to reconstruct the city as it was circa 300CE as a part of the Roman Empire at the time. What originally began as a project to map out all damaged and at-risk heritage sites across the Middle East since the turn of the millennia developed into a focus on one of these such sites- that of Palmyra in Syria. To demonstrate how ancient cities have become how they are seen and experienced today, I have been using Esri’s CityEngine city building software to reconstruct what was the past in the present. While not all cities from Antiquity have survived into the present day, the ones that have present an intriguing opportunity for understanding how they developed into what they are now.
As cities grow outwards and upwards over time, we most often forget what lies underneath what is on top.
