Saturday, May 19, 2018

10 Astounding Replicas

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pulman

“Imitation,” said Charles Caleb Colton, “is the sincerest form of flattery,” but flattery didn't lead people to create replicas of prehistoric cave art, a sunken ocean liner, a city street, the White House, a super-fast Batmobile, or a stealth drone. Flattery also wasn't the motive for the creation of replicas of King Tut's tomb, the Palmyra arch, the Shroud of Turin, or Noah's ark. These 10 astounding replicas were made for practical reasons, but their very existence is fascinating, and one of them is, for some, nothing less than awesome.
10 Lascaux Prehistoric Art Caves

The Lascaux cave paintings, located in southwestern France, are prehistoric. They portray horses, deer, and aurochs (extinct wild oxen). The art in the replica Lascaux caves portrays the same animals. Opened on December 10, 2016, the replica caves cost €66 million ($70 million). They're the next-best thing to the actual caves themselves, which were closed in 1963 to preserve their paintings. Unlike the actual caves, the replicas are located indoors, “in a new building at the foot of the hill in the Dordogne region where the original paintings are.” (LINK 1)
9 Titanic

The “unsinkable” Titanic is being re-created by China's Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Company. This time, it won't get underway, so there's no chance it will encounter an iceberg. The 984-foot replica Titanic will remain in dock permanently, “as a tourist attraction in landlocked Sichuan province.” An exact copy of the original ocean liner, it features “a dining hall, theater, luxury first-class cabins and [a] swimming pool.” China's replica is larger than the one built for James Cameron's movie, which is immensely popular in China. Cameron's replica was built on a scale of 90 percent; the Wuchang replica is a full-scale copy. It should be completed at the end of 2018. (LINK 2)
8 West Asheville

Hall Fletcher Elementary School's kindergartners have taken on a huge project. They're replicating an entire street of their hometown, West Asheville, North Carolina—out of gingerbread, no less. The street includes such buildings as a bank, grocery stores, and other businesses. The group project is intended to teach the children how interdependent members of a community are. They will also learn about the “goods and services” the community provides its residents. In the process of constructing the street, they will apply their knowledge of science, technology, and math (STEM) principles. (LINK 3)
7 White House

In 1924, Humble Oil (Exxon) founder and former Texas Governor Ross Sterling “commissioned architect Alfred Finn to build the Colonial-style” Ross Sterling Mansion, modeling it after the White House. It took three years to complete, and has “a rotunda portico, grand salon, library, media room, game room and . . . gym.” Located “along Bayridge Road in Morgan's Point, about 30 miles east of downtown Houston,” the 6,360.9 square-meter (20,689 square-foot) home contains 15 bedrooms. In December 2016, it was sold at auction to the highest bidder. The new owner can sleep in the replica executive mansion every night, just as U. S. presidents sleep in the real deal. (LINK 4)

6 Batmobile

Automobile designer and restorer Casey Putsch wanted the Batmobile replica he was building to be as authentic as possible, so he equipped it with a jet engine. Incredibly, Putsch worked from memory, creating only one drawing: “a special shaft” that he planned to have a “machining company” custom-make for him. “He taught himself about turbines, so he could rebuild and install the car's powerplant, a military surplus Boeing jet engine that came out of a U.S. Navy drone helicopter.” His Batmobile's 365 hp engine burns jet fuel, kerosene or diesel. The award-winning vehicle, which “has an aluminum and fiberglass body” and weighs 1,270 kg (2,800 lb), can go from 0 to 96.6 km (60 mph) in 3.9 seconds, and its top speed is 298 kph (185 mph). Not bad for a replica! (LINK 5)
5 King Tut Tomb
Over the 90 years they've been visiting the historical site, tourists have taken a toll on King Tut's tomb. “To prevent further damage,” a replica of the ancient pharaoh's final resting place has been created. Conservationists hope the replica will siphon off some of the “flow of traffic to the original.” To announce the replica's grand opening, the British Broadcasting Corporation aired a documentary, “A New Tomb for Tutankhamun: A Travel Show Special,” hosted by Rajan Datar.
 BBC presenter Rajan Datar stands before a replica of King Tut's tomb.

The construction of the replica began in 2009. To create it, “each tiny speck of sand and paint crack inside the tomb” was scanned by lasers. Then, 3D printing and other technology were used “to make [a] facsimile as close to the original as possible.” After a delay caused by political unrest, the replica of the tomb was opened on April 30, 2014. It remains to be seen, skeptics contend, whether tourists will opt to tour the replica rather than the actual tomb. (LINK 6)
4 Palmyra Arch

The triumphal Palmyra Arch stood in Syria since the third century AD, a testament to Rome's victorious military. Then, in October, 2015, the world-famous artifact was destroyed by ISIS. The Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) created a scale replica of the arch, displaying it in London's Trafalgar Square, before exhibiting it, later, in New York City's Manhattan borough. Twenty feet tall, the replica weighs 12 tons. 3D models were made from photographs of the arch, and the replica is made of Egyptian marble. Robotic technology was used to cut, sand, bore, and chisel it. As a precaution, the IDA is cooperating with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) “to 3D model other monuments in Palmyra” and vows to rebuild, as often as necessary, any that are destroyed. (LINK 7)
3 Stealth Drone
After capturing a U. S. stealth surveillance drone in 2011, Iran claims it has reverse-engineered the aircraft. According to Fars News Agency, the drone, although smaller than the original, is capable of bombing U. S. warships during “possible battle.” The U. S. drone was spying “on nuclear and military sites in Iran.” Allah helped the Iranian engineers decode the U. S. drone's codes and passwords, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps aerospace officer said.


U. S. officials are skeptical of Iran's claims. They say the nation would be incapable of reverse-engineering the drone's sophisticated technology, although doing so might be possible with Russian or Chinese assistance. The U. S. also maintains that the drone was not “hijacked” by Iran, but, instead, crash-landed. Iran also claims its technicians were able to decode “two hard drives,” which indicated that the U. S drone flew 13 surveillance missions over Pakistan and Afghanistan, and “official images” of the captured U. S. drone show it sustained “little apparent damage to the housing of the sensors and camera section, or the landing gear.” (LINK 8)

2 Shroud of Turin
For a couple of weeks, Shenandoah, in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, had its own Shroud of Turin, a replica on loan to St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church. The actual 2,000-year-old shroud is in Italy. The replica on display in Shenandoah is one of nine such copies. Authorized by the Vatican, it tours the world, and the recent exhibition was the second time it was loaned to the Shenandoah church.

The authentic shroud bears imprints of a crucified man, and the Catholic Church and its faithful believe it's the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. The replica exhibited in Shenandoah bears copies of the imprints, and many who view the replica shroud are awed by it; some believe it is impregnated with “healing power.” (LINK 9)
1 Noah's Ark
In the book of Genesis, Noah dreams that God is about to send an immense flood over the earth, and Noah builds an ark to save a pair of every animal, his family, and himself. In 1992, Johan Huibers, “a wealthy businessman,” had a similar dream, in which the The North Sea flooded the Netherlands. As a result, in 2008, he began to built a full-scale replica of Noah's ark.
Using the same linear measurement mentioned in the Bible, the cubit, or the length from elbow to fingertips, Huibers built “the vessel to the dimensions specified in the book of Genesis”: 300 cubits long (137 m, or 450 ft), 50 cubits wide (21 m, or 70 ft), and 30 cubits high (14 m, or 45 ft). Instead of actual animals, he loaded the ark with “life-sized plastic animals and an aviary of live birds.” The replica of the ark will become a “Bible museum” and “inspire children.”

Unable to identify the wood the Bible identifies as “gopher wood,” Huibers welded “together the metal hulls of 25 barges into a single frame, which was then covered with Scandinavian pine.” The replica ark isn't exactly like the original in a few other details, too. It contains “sleeping quarters, a theater, restaurant and conference facilities to seat 1,500 people.” Although he wanted to sail the replica ark to the London Olympics, “he was forced to abandon his plan to sail across the North Sea after authorities raised safety issues.” (LINK 10)
Huibers' replica of the ark isn't the only one. A “life-size” replica in Kentucky, measuring 492 m (510 ft), opened to the public on July 7, 2016, and is intended to educate visitors about the “worldwide flood, as described in Genesis.” According to scientists “ at the University of Leicester in England who studied the exact dimensions of Noah’s Ark,” the vessel “could have floated even with two of every animal in the world.” The scientists were “confident it would have handled the weight of 70,000 creatures without sinking,” and “previous research has suggested that there were approximately 35,000 species of animals which would have needed to be saved by Noah.” (LINK 11)

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