Virtual Silk Roads

Silk Roads is probably the most dynamic and persistent mechanism of cultural exchanges in human history. The Virtual Silk Roads project starts with the rich heritage of the Silk Roads, and further hire “Silk Road” as a metaphor to envision global history with similar value to share.

SITU constitutes the cultural infrastructure for the Virtual Silk Roads project — a shared, ever-expanding 3D atlas of world heritage. Virtually reconstructed with a conceptual framework based on “patterns-types-events”, all the 3D assets published in SITU have gone through rigorous academic study and peer-review process. Each one is a place you can read, walk in 3D, draft, reconstruct, and share.

The name is 司图 (sī-tú) — the keeper of figures. A traditional role for someone who minds the lines, the lists, the lay of the land. We took it for a project that does the same with heritage.

The Silk Roads sit across a dozen disciplines and digital archives. Wikipedia knows they existed, GIS knows where, museum sites hold the artifacts. None of them let you read a place, walk it, model it, and contribute back — all in one tab. SITU is the place that does.

Workspace, knowledge graph, atlas, conversation — for any researcher, any student, anyone curious. We work with professionals from diverse backgrounds — architectural historians, archaeologists, computational humanists — and also local actors with untold memories. If that’s your kind of thing, come find us.