Recently, our joint project with the cultural relics conservation team of the School of Art and Archaeology at Zhejiang University was selected for the Tencent "Tanyuan Program 2024" co-creation implementation project list. The project focuses on the intelligent identification and digital restoration of smoke-damaged murals in the Kizil Grottoes, applying cutting-edge terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) technology to precisely identify and digitally restore the smoke-covered murals in Cave 161 of the Kizil Grottoes. Terahertz waves have excellent properties such as strong penetrability and safety, and have attracted wide attention in recent years for their great potential in non-destructive testing of cultural relics. Terahertz waves can not only penetrate the surface of relics to image their shape and internal structure, but also leverage their coherence and spectral resolution to analyze the composition of materials — effectively making up for the shortcomings of detection methods in other frequency bands and providing a diversified toolkit for cultural relic preservation.
Professor Zhang Hui at the final roadshow of the "Tanyuan Program 2024" co-creation implementation track at Tencent Beijing headquarters
The project team brings together expertise from the School of Art and Archaeology of Zhejiang University, the School of Electronic Science and Engineering of UESTC, and Chengdu Miji Technology Co., Ltd. The team relies on key research platforms including the Art and Archaeology Image Data Laboratory of Zhejiang University (one of the first philosophy and social science laboratories of the Ministry of Education), the Key Laboratory of Terahertz Technology of the Ministry of Education (UESTC), and the Key Scientific Research Base for Digital Conservation of Cave Temple Relics of the National Cultural Heritage Administration (Zhejiang University), and has accumulated rich experience in cave temple relic conservation and terahertz technology applications. The team leader, Professor Zhang Hui, serves as a member of the Analysis and Testing Technology Committee of the Chinese Association for Conservation Technology of Cultural Relics, and won the First Prize of the 2020 National Science and Technology Progress Award. Core team member Professor Hu Min serves as Director of the Terahertz Science Research Center of UESTC and Deputy Director of the Key Laboratory of Terahertz Technology of the Ministry of Education, and has won the First Prize of the Sichuan Natural Science Award and the Third Prize of the Technological Invention Award. Chengdu Miji Technology Co., Ltd. is a startup in the terahertz technology field, focusing on the independent R&D, production and sales of terahertz instruments and equipment, with capabilities in terahertz far-field time-domain spectroscopy, terahertz near-field time-domain spectroscopy, terahertz continuous-wave near-field imaging, and the continuous optimization, delivery, testing, application development and professional after-sales service of various core components.
Over the next six months, the project team will collaborate with expert teams such as the Xinjiang Kizil Grottoes Research Institute. With the strong support of the Tencent Tanyuan Program, the team will deepen the research and conservation of cave temple murals, accelerate the application of terahertz technology on site at cave temples, and is expected to achieve a breakthrough in integrated industry-university-research co-creation results by mid-2025.
Source: WeChat official account of the School of Art and Archaeology, Zhejiang University