The Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sport has partnered with Microsoft to digitally preserve and restore ancient Olympia using AI.

The digital revival project will allow viewers around the world to explore ancient Olympia as it stood more than 2,000 years ago through an immersive experience via an interactive mobile app, web-based desktop experience, or a Microsoft HoloLens 2 exhibition at the Athens Olympic Museum.

“Ancient Olympia: Common Grounds is a unique way of experiencing Greece’s proud cultural heritage. Visitors around the world can virtually visit the ancient site of Olympia and experience history first hand using augmented reality technology,” said Kyriakos Mitsotakis, prime minister of Greece. “The project to digitally preserve ancient Olympia is a stunning achievement in cultural heritage, bringing together humanity and cutting-edge technology to benefit the world and empower coming generations with new ways to explore our past,” said Brad Smith, president and vice chair, Microsoft.

The project digitally preserves 27 monuments at the site, including the original Olympic Stadium, the temples of Zeus and Hera, and the workshop of the renowned sculptor Phidias.

In the 3D experience, these buildings are recreated in lifelike detail, researched by the Hellenic Ministry’s expert archaeologists to be as true as possible to their original forms. This includes historical timelines of the site’s changes over time and depictions of artefacts from each period.

Through its AI for Cultural Heritage initiative, Microsoft partnered with technology company Iconem, which specialises in digitising historic sites in 3D, to create the foundational model of ancient Olympia.

Both on-the-ground cameras and drones were used to take hundreds of thousands of images of the site, which Microsoft AI processed to create photo realistic models.

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