O U P - U S A 1 5 1 CHAPTER 7 At-Risk World Heritage and Virtual Reality Visualization for Cyber-Archaeology The Mar Saba Test Case THOMAS E. LEVY, CONNOR SMITH, KRISTIN AGCAOILI, ANISH KANNAN, AVNER GOREN, JÜRGEN P. SCHULZE, AND GLENN YAGO INTRODUCTION For years, humans have been fascinated with the preservation of material cul- ture, from small artifacts to entire landscapes, and have seen them as having signifcant cultural value, as tangible links between them and their history.* However, though the ages, people have used the destruction of a cultural heritage as military and ideological tools to dominate others. In the Middle East, this has a long and well-documented history. For example, Jerusalem, the capital of ancient Israel, was systematically destroyed twice in antiquity, * We are grateful to Father Ioannes and Father Vasilias of the Mar Saba Monastery for their enthusiastic support of and collaboration on this project and allowing us to carry out the feld work at their home. Tanks also to Craig Smitheram for his help in the feld. We also thank Matt Howland for his critical comments on this chapter and help with feldwork; thanks to Stephen Savage for producing the Kidron Valley watershed map. Te laboratory work for this research was carried out with funding support from the University of California Ofce of the President Research Catalyst Awards CA-16-376911, with Tomas E. Levy serving as principal investigator. Special thanks to Dr. Andrew Viterbi (La Jolla, California) for his generous support of this work; see –Fox 2015). Tomas E. Levy, Connor Smith, Kristin Agcaoili, Anish Kannan, Avner Goren, Jürgen P. Schulze, and Glenn Yago, At-Risk World Heritage and Virtual Reality Visualization for Cyber-Archaeology In: Digital Cities. Edited by: Maurizio Forte and Helena Murteira, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190498900.003.0008