VARANASI: A virtual museum is in the offing in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Kashi to enable people for online viewing of the city's antiquities and art objects. The virtual museum is likely to come up at the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) protected Man Mahal observatory, a beautiful example of Mughal-Rajput architecture with stone balconied windows and painted ceiling on the bank of Ganga.
During his visit to the city on November 19, the union minister of state for Tourism and Culture (independent charge) Mahesh Sharma had also visited the Man Mahal observatory and asked to start a virtual museum to showcase the monuments and culture of the city, said the superintending archaeologist of Sarnath circle of ASI Neeraj Kumar Sinha adding that the ASI director general Usha Sharma and secretary, union ministry of culture, Raghvendra Singh arrived here on Wednesday to make a spot visit for this purpose.
"During their two-day stay they will visit the archaeological sites and museum at Sarnath and Man Mahal observatory at Ganga ghat to take stock of the condition and facilities," Sinha told TOI adding that the Man Mahal observatory is the best suitable place for the proposed virtual museum.
According to ASI records, the palace was built by Man Singh, the Raja of Amber and a celebrated general of the Great Mughal Emperor Akbar in around 1600AD, while the observatory was added to it around 1737 AD by Sawai Jai Singh II (1686-1745 AD), who himself was a great astronomer, the founder of Jaipur city and a descendant of Raja Man Singh.
The ministry of culture has embarked upon an ambitious project of the digitization of the collections of museums to bring these collections closer to the public by making them available for online viewing. According to the ministry records, through the technical expertise of Pune based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and the Art Institute of Chicago the ministry got standardized a software -JATAN for implementation of the project. The JATAN Virtual Museum builder software with 3 dimensional/2 dimensional photography for documentation and digitization of antiquities has been designed with a vision to enable museums across the nation, to digitize their collection and curate online galleries for public viewing.
In the first phase of digitization project the JATAN software has been implemented in 10 selected museums including National Museum, New Delhi, Indian Museum, Kolkata, Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru, Allahabad Museum, Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad, Nagarjunakonda Museum, and Goa Museum.
During his visit to the city on November 19, the union minister of state for Tourism and Culture (independent charge) Mahesh Sharma had also visited the Man Mahal observatory and asked to start a virtual museum to showcase the monuments and culture of the city, said the superintending archaeologist of Sarnath circle of ASI Neeraj Kumar Sinha adding that the ASI director general Usha Sharma and secretary, union ministry of culture, Raghvendra Singh arrived here on Wednesday to make a spot visit for this purpose.
"During their two-day stay they will visit the archaeological sites and museum at Sarnath and Man Mahal observatory at Ganga ghat to take stock of the condition and facilities," Sinha told TOI adding that the Man Mahal observatory is the best suitable place for the proposed virtual museum.
According to ASI records, the palace was built by Man Singh, the Raja of Amber and a celebrated general of the Great Mughal Emperor Akbar in around 1600AD, while the observatory was added to it around 1737 AD by Sawai Jai Singh II (1686-1745 AD), who himself was a great astronomer, the founder of Jaipur city and a descendant of Raja Man Singh.
The ministry of culture has embarked upon an ambitious project of the digitization of the collections of museums to bring these collections closer to the public by making them available for online viewing. According to the ministry records, through the technical expertise of Pune based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and the Art Institute of Chicago the ministry got standardized a software -JATAN for implementation of the project. The JATAN Virtual Museum builder software with 3 dimensional/2 dimensional photography for documentation and digitization of antiquities has been designed with a vision to enable museums across the nation, to digitize their collection and curate online galleries for public viewing.
In the first phase of digitization project the JATAN software has been implemented in 10 selected museums including National Museum, New Delhi, Indian Museum, Kolkata, Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru, Allahabad Museum, Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad, Nagarjunakonda Museum, and Goa Museum.
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