Syrian Antiquities

A thought occurred to me last week that Blender could be used to create renderings of some of the magnificent Syrian antiquities being so foolishly destroyed right now by ISIS. Seeing as how most of these monuments may no longer exist in the near future, virtual versions may be the only way we may be able to visit them. Would that make for an interesting contest topic?

How would that work ?
I don’t fancy popping over there to take some photos and measurements of these antiquities so i could model them.

Google should have hundreds of images of antiquities from around the world, but such a contest thread for artifacts from that location (right now anyway) could potentially be used by some as an excuse to bash religion (so it would be to be clearly stated what would be allowed as discussion).

Most people here seem pretty sensible about that kind of thing, I think such a contest could go off with little difficulty.

I think one of the guidelines for the contest is that the model must be uploaded to a website under a CC-0 or CC-BY license so that the models may be shared and distributed, seeing as the goal is to preserve ancient artifacts, but there be some sort of interesting prize to attract more contestants.

Perhaps you could get a sponsor involved that would be interested in donating or selling at a reduced price a copy or two of their software in exchange for a little advertisement.

I have two questions.

Is this still an idea being mulled over?

Does it have to be a contest? Could it just be a project instead made for mass consumption?

Because of these incidents like ISIS destroying these relics you have people capturing these things in 3D before they are lost, there’s an institution in Oxford, England doing this with photoscanning and the like. I wish I could remember the name of them