Pisidian Antioch
From January 13 to February 24, 2006 at the Duderstadt center on the University of Michigan north campus, the Kelsey Museum mounted an exhibition on the Roman site of Antioch of Pisidia in Asia Minor (Turkey)—a Hellenistic city refounded by Augustus in 25 BC as a Roman colony. Located along a strategic overland artery between Syria and the western coast of Asia Minor, Pisidian Antioch served Rome’s military needs but also presented a striking symbol, from the Roman perspective, of the benefits that Roman civilization provided to local populations. The city is best known to the modern world as a destination on the first missionary journey of St. Paul and Barnabas in the 1st century AD, recounted in the Book of Acts.
Held at the Duderstadt Center Gallery on North Campus, the exhibition featured a physical model created with a University of Michigan Duderstadt Center’s Rapid Prototyping servces. Digital reconstructions of the buildings and topography, which were created with the help of internal staff working with talented students associated with the project, were displayed using the Virtual Reality MIDEN which conveyed a sense of the original monumentality of the site and the character of its setting.