Pompeii’s ancient ruins guarded by a robot “dog”
The Archaeological Park of Pompeii has found a unique way to patrol the historical archaeological areas and structures of Pompeii in Italy.
Created by Boston Dynamics, a robot “dog” named Spot is being used to identify structural and safety issues at Pompeii: the ancient Roman city that was encased in volcanic ash following the 79 C.E. eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
The robot is the latest addition to a broader initiative to transform Pompeii into a “Smart Archaeological Park” with “intelligent, sustainable and inclusive management.”
The movement for this “integrated technological solution” began in 2013, when UNESCO threatened to remove the site from the World Heritage List unless drastic measures were taken to improve its preservation, after structural deficiencies started to emerge.
The goal, as noted in the release, is to “improve both the quality of monitoring of the existing areas, and to further our knowledge of the state of progress of the works in areas undergoing recovery or restoration, and thereby to manage the safety of the site, as well as that of workers.”
“We wish to test the use of these robots in the underground tunnels that were made by illegal excavators and which we are uncovering in the area around Pompeii, as part of a memorandum of understanding with the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Torre Annunziata,” said Pompeii’s director general Gabriel Zuchtriegel in a statement.
In addition to having Spot the “dog” patrol the area, a laser scanner will also fly over the 163-acre site and record data, which will be used to study and plan further interventions to preserve the ancient ruins of Pompeii.
Image credits: Getty Images