Documenting cultural heritage sites and objects to the highest possible standards.

The municipality of Husillos, in an initiative developed by the mayor Don Juan Jesús Nevares Heredia, succeeded in getting permission, finding the finances, commissioning, and installing an exact facsimile, made by Factum Foundation, of one of the best-preserved Roman sarcophagi in Spain. The marble sarcophagus known as ‘La Orestiada’ (or the Husillos Sarcophagus) was removed from the town in the late 19th century, despite opposition from the town’s inhabitants, and taken to the Museo Arquelógico Nacional (MAN) in Madrid.  This was a common form of preservation at the time and was also the case with the Dama de Elche, recorded in 2003 in an early Factum initiative focused on issues of ownership and sharing.

A team from University of Calabar and the National Museum Calabar have just finished a nine-day period of preservation works at Etinghi Nta monolith site. As a temporary measure, a fence has been erected to prevent incursion from farmers that entails the bush-burning that leads to severe damage to the monoliths. When the planting season comes, native economic trees such as bush mango and cocoa will be planted, both to provide protection for the monoliths and an alternative resource for the community to yam cultivation. It is hoped that once the site is established with mature trees, the natural barrier will allow for the removal of the fence. The next site to be worked on is Arabatal, an Abanyom clan site.

On the other side of the Atlantic, a team from People’s Palace Projects and Àterra Bioarquitetura are currently building a centre to house the facsimile of the cave of Kamukuwaká, which Factum restored following the vandalisation of the original in 2019. The building will also house a research centre for monitoring the nearby river Batovi.

In May 2023, the Imperial War Museum reached out to Factum Foundation to carry out the high-resolution recording of Gassed by John Singer Sargent, considered one of the most important war-related works of art of the past centuries. The recording was planned as part of a major restoration of the painting that revealed the original colours under a layer of yellowed varnish. The high-resolution data of the painting’s surface and colour acquired by Factum Foundation will form part of the artwork’s conservation history, providing evidence of Sargent’s working method and his great technical facility.

Over the span of a week, Carlos Bayod Lucini, Marina Luchetti and Carolina Gris recorded the surface of the painting using two Lucida 3D Scanners working in tandem (a usual practice to efficiently record the surface of large paintings), while Gabriel Scarpa acquired the accurate colour using composite photography.

Funded by Metamorfoze, Museum De Lakenhal started a research project to explore how a collection of 33 books of black woollen cloth sample can be safely digitised in their current, deformed condition. In this project, the Factum Foundation is involved in helping make the content of these volumes available through the application of non-contact digital technologies.

After a first test in December 2022, in July 2023 two of Factum Foundation’s expert technicians conducted the scanning of a total of 15 pages from 8 different volumes in high resolution. They used both close-range photogrammetry and the Selene Photometric Stereo System, developed by Jorge Cano and Factum’s engineering team.

The results of these preliminary tests are promising and will help determine the specific method to be applied if the rest of the volumes are to be digitised.

More on the project

In August 2023, Jorge Cano and Carlos San Juan completed the installation of a Selene Photometric Stereo System inside the Princeton University Library. This pioneering recording system developed by Jorge Cano and the Factum Arte engineering team is the first of its kind ever installed in the US and is part of a larger initiative – the Selene Club.

The installation was followed by a training session for the Princeton Library Digital Imaging department led by Roel Muñoz, and tests were carried out on several items from the library. More information coming soon.