REDLANDS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dr. Wesley Bernardini, an associate professor of Anthropology and Sociology at University of Redlands, has been working with the Hopi people in Arizona to map and preserve their ancestral villages for the past ten years. This month, all that research comes to fruition with the launch of the Hopi Petroglyph Sites Digital Preservation Project website. This portal is a 3D digital archive of the Hopi sites and petroglyph in Tutuveni and Dawa Park in Arizona. The website project was led by Oakland-based CyArk, funded by World Monuments Fund (WMF) and supported by the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office.
Through his research, Dr. Bernardini was able to bring attention to the preservation needs of one of the most significant Hopi rock art sites. His efforts were instrumental in helping place Tutuveni on the WMF Watch in 2008. The placement on the WMF Watch then led to CyArk’s involvement in digitally preserving Hopi sites.
“I am thrilled to have worked in partnership with Dr. Bernardini at the University of Redlands and other partners on this project. The website marks the culmination of an intense amount of collaboration and commitment to helping preserve the Hopi people’s heritage,” said Lee Wayne Lomayestewa, research assistant at Hopi Cultural Preservation Office.
The special Hopi portal, which went live on December 16, 2011, will allow a new generation of Native American youth to learn about and share the legacy of their ancestors. The realization of the Digital Preservation Project includes the documentation of sacred Hopi sites through state-of-the-art 3D capture technology and the use of the data captured created an online interactive and educational multimedia freely available to the public. The 3D models and virtual tours captured at Tutuveni and Dawa Park in Arizona provide the basis for this rich interactive web portal, but they also represent a permanent and highly-accurate 3D digital archive of the sites and the petroglyphs.
Visitors to the Hopi portal will be able to take virtual tours of both Tutuveni and Dawa Park, learn about Hopi Clan Symbols through educational videos and interactive games, and browse through a large set of rich multimedia including 3D models, drawings, animations, and historic photographs.