Greek minister meets Spartan king Leonidas’ “digital twin” at US university

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Greek Minister of Culture and Sports Lina Mendoni was welcomed by representatives of the University of Connecticut (UConn) earlier this month during a visit focused on exploring collaborative perspectives.

Officials, including Greek Ambassador to the United States Alexandra Papadopoulou, toured UConn Tech Park’s Innovation Partnership Building (IPB) and received a rather original piece of memorabilia: miniature busts of the Spartan king Leonidas made with a 3D printer.

Minister Mendoni (R) and the Greek Ambassador to the United States, Alexandra Papadopoulou, hold miniature busts of the Spartan king Leonidas made with a 3D printer. Photo: Sydney Herdle/UConn

“We invited them to IPB because we wanted them to see our Tech Park and basically how we are connecting technology with culture and the arts,” said Prof. Emmanouil Anagnostou, interim executive director of UConn Tech Park.

“The main discussion has been how we can improve the affiliated study abroad program in which we are sending American students from UConn to Greece, where they engage in Greek studies and also visit archaeological sites.”

One of Prof Anagnostou’s proposed initiatives referred to a partnership in which the advanced technology used to produce the miniature ‘digital twins’ of Leonidas could be used to offer new ways of presenting components of historical Greek artefacts.

Mini 3D printed copies of the Spartan king were created in honor of the visiting dignitaries, based on the digital representation of the historical bust of Leonidas.

A copy of the original sculpture displayed in the Sparta Archaeological Museum was digitized using a technique known as photogrammetry to produce the king’s “digital twin” at UConn Tech Park.

A brief explanation on the UConn site outlines how the technique works:

“With photogrammetry, a large series of high-resolution photographs are taken, then a coordinate measurement technique is used to extract three-dimensional information from the two-dimensional images to create a detailed, permanent digital representation of the object.”

While at Uconn, Dr. Mendoni also visited the Theater of the School of Fine Arts accompanied by its CEO Michelle Polgar and the Center of Hellenic Studies of the University “Paideia” where she was welcomed by its president Elias Tomazos.

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