Sinetomb: the semantic representation of the tomb of Emperor Qianlong

摘要

While following the pattern of Chinese imperial burials in its internal and external structure, the tomb of Emperor Qianlong (1736-1796), a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000, is distinguished by inscriptions (30,000 characters) which are engraved on the walls and vaults and are exclusively in Tibetan writing and Lantsa, a script derived from the Indian alphabet. Although the presence of Buddhist representations on the doors of the various funerary chambers as well as on the walls and on the vaults allowed to recognize the Buddhist character of these inscriptions, thirty years after the opening of the tomb these inscriptions remained unidentified. This article describes the progress of the SINETOMB project, aiming at the digitization and 3D modeling of the tomb. Besides the possibility of a more complete study of these inscriptions by integrating them into the monumental study made from the architectural point of view, the digitization and the 3D modeling made it possible to clearly highlight the results of the study of the inscriptions and more precisely the guidelines of the design of the ornamental program of the imperial tomb, namely to recreate virtually a stupa, Buddhist funerary monument in an architecture without any religious connotation. This project also aims to develop a digital information system available to researchers via 3D web technologies.