Working with historical authenticity

While working with the Augmented History project, we are quite keen about keeping everything we present as close as possible to what is known about the history of the object. So just how serious are we about the historical authenticity? The short answer: very serious!

If we take the example of Uppsala Cathedral, we have spent many hours to tease out all available information about the area around 1500. We have looked at historical documents, archaeological excavations, pictures and drawings. We are also working closely with the experts at the Uppland museum, and the colleagues who have been doing much of the later archaeological excavations in the area, as well as producing the massive nine volume research publication about the history of the cathedral. We have had many discussions about the details of our reconstructions and are continuously checking our interpretations with these experts.

When possible, we also 3D scan original buildings and objects, if they are available, to include these in our reconstruction. Thus, we have scanned the whole cathedral and the smaller church Helga Trefaldighet. We have also scanned some parts that are remaining from an impressive gate to the old university building, the Carolina Academia. The pieces from this gate are scattered, with a statue that has been moved to the south gate of the cathedral; some pieces are on display in the Upplands Museeum and some in the Gustavianum Museum. Some are also kept in a storage facility of the Cathedral. However, scanning them all individually allow us to bring them together and make a reconstruction of what it might have originally looked like, as close to the reality as we can do it!

The 3D scans are available in our Uppsala Cathedral collection on Sketchfab

Of course, despite all our efforts, there are still a lot of details that are just beyond what can be known, and here we need no make educated guesses to create a full and vivid environment – as close to the reality as possible.