Rome was not built in a day

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Rohan (Year 11) recounts his experience of a webinar exploring a virtual model of the ancient city of Rome -

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"Rome was not built in a day"; great things need time to create. In fact, it took Professor Matthew Nicholls of Reading University over 10 years to create his virtual model of Rome.

Last week, Ms Banner-Hill very kindly organised for us to join Prof. Nicholls’ webinar. He explained that his 3D architectural model recreates the city of Rome as it appeared in the early 4th century CE. What makes his model transformative is that it is fully explorable digitally so you can move cameras round it, fly through it or even render individual buildings.

I found these models of The Colosseum and Circus Maximus truly remarkable. His representations showed these buildings in their ancient splendour. This is something which would otherwise be difficult to appreciate as, in reality, these places are in ruins. An added bonus was that the purpose and use of ancient Rome’s buildings is often examined in the ‘Roman Civilisation’ paper in GCSE Latin!

I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation and the way in which 3D graphics can enhance our experience of the ancient world. Many thanks to Ms Banner-Hill and the Classics department for organising this fantastic webinar.

Article written by Rohan (Year 11)