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The SPHINX and The ROBOT
 A modern 3-D ghost of the Naxos Sphinx floats before the ruins of Apollo's sanctuary at Delphi. A few drums from the 30-foot column she once sat on lie nearby. She faces the adytum, the hidden and forbidden inner sanctum of Apollo's temple where the Pythoness, Apollo's priestess, chanelled his oracular replies. Photo from Le Monde.  The Naxos Sphinx was erected atop a 30-foot tall Ionic column at Apollo's sanctuary at Delphi by the citizens of the island of Naxos in 560-570 BC -- or, given her unsmiling "Severe" style, as early as 580 BC. Marble. Height, over 6 feet [2.2 m]; weight, just under 2 tons. Delphi Museum. Photo © University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Scholars disagree over just where, why, and how this monumental sphinx stood at Delphi. Did she stand facing the forbidden "holy of holies" in the temple of Apollo to honor him and seek his protection for the people of Naxos? Or did she stand guard over the grave of Python, the giant snake that Apollo killed and whose rotting corpse emitted the intoxicating fumes inhaled by Apollo's priestess and oracle, the Pythoness? Did she face the rock of the Pythoness herself? Some say she was erected to honor, not Apollo, but Dionysos, a god who loved Naxos for its fine wine and his beloved Ariadne and who was left in charge of Delphi in the winter while Apollo was away in the far north, in the land of the Hyperboreans where the sun rose and set just once a year. The Naxos Sphinx stood atop her column at Delphi for a thousand years, until earthquakes and landslides finally toppled and buried her along with the rest of Delphi. In 1861 several pieces of her were found, but her head was missing. It was later found in a wall of the village that had grown up over the ruins and that was moved away by French archeologists who began to excavate the site in 1892. So it was not until their "big dig," which lasted a decade, that the Naxos Sphinx, after 16 centuries of darkness, again saw the light of day. Of her original column, only its top two drums and Ionic capital have survived. THE NAXOS SPHINX IN PLASTER AT LYON The archeologists who found her had a plaster cast made, which was exhibited in Paris in 1900 in the French Pavilion at the Universal Exposition. In 1901 that plaster copy was given to the Museum of Casts at the Louis Lumiere University in Lyon, where it sits today. The plaster cast in Lyon is not a perfect copy of the original, which still sits in Delphi, in the Delphi Museum. The plaster copy is almost pure white, while the original Sphinx was a painted lady: red hair, black lashes, red and black pupils, red lips, and red, white, and blue plumage. In Delphi, even after 26 centuries of weather and wear, faint traces of her paint remain. When she fell, though, she lost most of her forelegs and most of her nose and remains today with a badly bruised, disfigured face. ARCHEOVISION SCANS THE LYON CAST  In the workshop of the Museum of Casts in Lyon, Pierre-Yves Saillant, head of quality control at CNRS and Archeovision, and Loïc Lespinas, 3D computer engineer at the laboratory, scan the Lyons plaster cast of the Naxos Sphinx, one of the few available in the world. Their Minolta 3D camera records one by one the 100 areas marked out by the red beam of a ruby laser. The first step was to make a digital map and model of the sphinx using a 3D digital camera and a computer. Archeovision wanted to work directly with the original in the Delphi Museum, but due to a remodelling of the Museum in preparation for the 2004 Olympics, that was not possible. So they went to Lyon to scan its 1901 plaster copy. Impossible to scan as a single block, the Sphinx was, like a jigsaw puzzle, virtually "cut up" into 100 pieces or sections -- each section marked out by the red beam of a ruby laser. One by one, Archeopole's technicians went to work, scanning the 100 sections.  The Naxos sphinx reborn as a painted, if damaged, lady? No, just a colorized digital analysis with areas color-coded to show ___? Photo from Loic's computer screen by Philippe Pailly, Eurelios. "One starts by smoothing surfaces to erase sharp edges created by digital noise. Then one cuts off the artifacts that appear on the edge of each image. Then one connects each image with its neighbors. Then one recreates crevices that the scanner beam can't reach.... The 3D file of the Sphinx contains 20 million polygons! The RapidForm software does not support it. It is however a very expensive professional software, more costly than 3DS Max, and supported by a powerful PC equipped with a Xeon processor, 8 gigabytes of read-write memory and two nVidia 7800 graphics boards. So we had to find just the right compromise by adjusting the resolution of the scan."  The Sphinx & the Robot. Photo from the workshop of SNBR, a stone-cutters' cooperative near Troyes, France, where the Naxos Sphinx was carved by the robot -- twice! First in plaster, to test it, with the result you see here, and then from a 6-ton block of Carrara marble. Once the technicians at Archéovision had finished digitizing the Lyon plaster cast of the sphinx, she was ready to be recreated in the real world by a big orange stone-cutting robot. This machine, a Marmot 6400 conceived in Italy and perfected in France by IMT, was waiting in a workshop in Saint-Savine, near Troyes, owned by SNBR, a cooperative society of stone-cutters. Also present: a big block of Carrara marble, weighing nearly 6 tons, waiting to be cut. Marmot was called "6 axe" because, like a knight of old, he had an arsenal of cutting tools: routers, drills, grinders, and polishers. But if his hardware was up to the task, his software wasn't. It could not digest the enormous file -- 20 gigabytes of data -- that had to be fed into it. New software, called Meca, from the Picasoft company, was installed. Even then, Marmot had to go through a long tutoring program before it could scan, rout, core, cut, surface or polish. By February, 2005, Marmot seemed ready. But was the marble? To avoid ruining the 6-ton block, they tested the robot first on a plaster version. They encountered some snafus, but after further tweakings of his software, Marmot produced the fine plaster copy you see here.  While the earlier machine-made plaster twin "watches," the robot sculptor Marmot 6400 puts finishing touches to the 2-ton marble replica. The mist around the marble figure is water sprayed from nozzles in the robot's head. Photo by Phillipe Pailly at EURELIOS. "At dusk, a strange activity prevails over the little village of Saint-Savine, near the city of Troyes. In a moonlike setting, blocks of stone, in various sizes and colors, are being lit by a pale reflection. A steady buzzing noise, like a bug chirping , rises as you get closer to an ordinary building. There’s not a soul around. An orange arm, equipped with sharp tools, is stirring in rhythm under the pale neon lights. It stands alone in front of a sculpture cut in a white Carrara marble block, delicately streaked with grey veins. A steady stream of water sprays out from four nozzles near the head of the robot. The copy of the Sphinx of Naxos is being completed in the dark, away from prying eyes. Bertrand Laucournet, SNBR engineer, and the only nocturnal observer allowed in, makes sure everything is working properly. He managed the operation from start to finish with the only training he masters: he is a stonecutters’ foreman. He managed to adapt Marmot 6400 to the specific job of masterpiece sculpting. “What an apprenticeship!” he explains proudly, to carry a world premiere through to a successful conclusion. He had all the initial problems to put up with, facing computer and tools breakdowns, as well as unpredictable reactions from the Italian robot. Bertrand Laucournet supervised the different steps of tooling. Each step has its specific machining. The robot had to go through a long teaching programme before it could rout, scan, surface, core or cut, driven by new software, Meca, from the Picasoft company. The pin [?] eats into the marble quarried from Carrara, Italy at 6500 revolutions per minute (equipment speed), coupled with 20mm per second (diving speed). Cut out of a six ton block, the final sphinx weights less than two tons. Set on a column topped by a capital, she sits imposingly, just as she did for centuries in the Delphi sanctuary." |
Library
~ Table of Contents ~
TYCHE & OEDIPUS
Fatal Boar Hunts, Fatal Loves: Meleager & Adonis A Valentine for Camille Flammarion The Met returns its Euphronios vase! Camille Flammarion: Romantic Astronomer The Fountains of Enceladus The Eye of God Is Ganymede the Boy from Marathon Bay? THE ANCIENT OLYMPIEIA FESTIVAL AT ATHENS Which satyr would you choose... The Marathon Boy and the Satyr Contrapossto from Praxiteles to Rubens and Playboy The Afternoon of a Faun The Dancing Satyr - A Lost Bronze of Praxiteles? Hermes, The Liar Who Invented the Lyre Inanna Adored: The Uruk Vase The Moon-God Nanna-Sin Visits his Ziggurat at Ur Apollo Sauroktonos, or How the Romans Killed the Lizard-Killer Jacob's Ladder Lilith: Wild Demon of Sex and Death DUMUZI FEEDS INANNA'S SHEEP The Sun God in his Dragon Boat Lassalle's Post-Modern Male Torso Brancusi's Torsos: Pure Platonic Forms? Brancusi on Men and Women: Take the Tate Test? Four Gods Greet the Rising Sun God Rilke's Archaic Torso of Apollo Culsu & Vanth Lead the Dead into Hades Aita, the Etruscan Hades Socrates' Apology: The Background THE GREEK SPHINX Hypnos & Thanatos, Sleep & Death Orestes Pursued by Furies in The Eumenides |
