A new view of the ancient world

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), May 3, 2002

NEW YORK (NYT) -- Everyone knows that the Roman Colosseum is an architectural marvel. Built so that thousands of people could be ushered in and out in minutes, it is a testament to the genius of Roman engineering. Or is it?

By reconstructing the building with three-dimensional computer modeling and then virtually "walking through" it, researchers have discovered that in some sections the building may have had all the efficiency of a railroad-style apartment on the Bowery. The model reveals dark, narrow upper hallways that probably hemmed in spectators, slowing their movement to a crawl.

Such three-dimensional modeling is turning some of archaeology's once-established truths on their heads. Because 3-D software can take into account the building materials and the laws of physics, it enables scholars to address construction techniques in ways sometimes overlooked when they are working with two-dimensional drawings.

"Now we have a tool that will really test assumptions," said Dean Abernathy, a doctoral student who helped reconstruct the Colosseum at the Cultural Virtual Reality Lab at the University of California at Los Angeles. "It creates a lot of excitement in the field."

The UCLA lab (www.cvrlab.org) creates models of architectural sites around the world. Since 1996 it has been working on a project called Rome Reborn, which seeks to rebuild much of the ancient metropolis.

Bernard Frischer, a classics professor at UCLA and director of the Cultural Virtual Reality Lab, said that researchers have generally held that the entire Colosseum was a masterpiece of circulation, with people able to enter and leave in as little as 10 minutes. Now he is not so sure.

"Most scholars just never focused on the problem of circulation throughout the building," he said. "They assumed that each of the floors was going to look like the bottom," which is spacious and well lighted. "Only once we had to reconstruct the building did an idea like that pop into our heads."

Such reconstructions have challenged traditional thinking about other sites as well. Analysis of UCLA models suggests that the Roman Senate may have been poorly ventilated and lighted and had inferior acoustics. The models also raised some new questions about the Temple of Saturn, whose design may have been altered centuries after its construction.

The way we were

NEW YORK (AP) -- Today is the 123rd day of 2002. There are 242 days left in the year. Here are some business and legal highlights from this date in history:

Two hundred years ago, on May 3, 1802, Washington, D.C., was incorporated as a city.

In 1921, West Virginia imposed the first state sales tax.

In 1937, Margaret Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel, Gone With the Wind.

In 1944, U.S. wartime rationing of most grades of meats ended.

In 1948, the Supreme Court ruled that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks or members of other racial groups were legally unenforceable.

In 1971, anti-war protesters began four days of demonstrations in Washington, D.C., aimed at shutting down the nation's capital.

In 1979, Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher was chosen to become Britain's first female prime minister as the Tories ousted the incumbent Labor government in parliamentary elections.

In 1986, in NASA's first post-Challenger launch, an unmanned Delta rocket lost power in its main engine shortly after liftoff, forcing safety officers to destroy it by remote control.

Five years ago: A group of Texas separatists ended a weeklong standoff with authorities; however, two armed followers fled into the woods (one was killed, the other eventually captured). World chess champion Garry Kasparov won the first game of his much-anticipated rematch with IBM's Deep Blue computer. (However, Kasparov ended up losing the six-game match.)

One year ago: The United States lost its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947. An estimated 36.4 million people tuned in to watch Tennessee nurse Tina Wesson win Survivor: The Australian Outback on CBS.

Breaking the HDTV price barrier

SALT LAKE CITY (NYT) -- Television broadcasters, TV manufacturers and programmers continue to blame one another for the slow acceptance of digital television. One obstacle has been the price of equipment. The converter boxes needed to receive digital broadcasts cost at least $550, more than most people spend on a television.

WOW Digital TV, a company in Salt Lake City that makes receivers, hopes to break the logjam later this year by selling a converter box for $199. The converters can be used with HDTV-ready sets or with an analog television to watch a standard-definition digital feed.

The company expects to break even at best with the converters. To make money, it will help television stations provide enhanced services -- some supported by advertising and some offered for a fee - - to lure viewers to digital television. In addition to standard programming, stations working with WOW Digital TV will be able to broadcast enhanced weather information, Web-like banner ads and movies on demand as well as sporting events from multiple angles, thanks to the additional channel capacity available when a program is broadcast in a compressed digital format.