In conflict zones, priceless artifacts are often destroyed. How can we save them?

By Manoush Zomorodi,

Matthew Cloutier, Sanaz Meshkinpour

Published January 24, 2025 at 9:45 AM EST

Part 3 of the TED Radio Hour episode The future of our memories.

When relics and landmarks are damaged in war or natural disasters, they're lost forever. Or are they? Google's Chance Coughenour explains how the latest tech can preserve and share that history.

About Chance Coughenour

Chance Coughenour is a senior program manager at Google Arts and Culture, where he leads projects that use Google's online platforms to digitally curate heritage from cultures around the world. Recent projects include Ukraine is Here, Explore UNESCO World Heritage, Preserving Our Past, Mali Magic, Exploring the Maya World, and The Art & Soul of Mosul. For this work, Coughenour coordinates with on-the-ground partners who use the latest imaging technologies to create 3D models of historic buildings and artifacts.

Before joining Google, Coughenour trained as a Mayan archeologist and later as a digital archeologist at the University of Stuttgart's Institute for Photogrammetry. In 2015, following the destruction of cultural heritage in northern Iraq, Chance co-founded Rekrei (formerly Project Mosul). Rekrei preserves the memory of lost cultural heritage through crowdsourced images and photogrammetry, the process of using 2D images to create 3D models. He holds degrees in archeology and history from the University of Leicester and West Virginia University.

About Yurko Prepodobnyi

Yurko Prepodobnyi is a co-founder of Skeiron, which preserves and promotes Ukraine's cultural heritage through digital technologies. Their project, #SaveUkrainianHeritage, aims to 3D scan heritage sites and monuments throughout Ukraine. The combination of laser scanning and photogrammetry technology allows Skeiron to scan and create digital models of these sites — and to help restore them in cases of destruction or deterioration. Skeiron also works to digitally curate these scans for researchers as well as the general public with programs like Pocket City AR. Prepodobnyi holds degrees in surveying and geodesy from L'viv Polytechnic National University.

Hoosli Ukrainian Male Chorus for use of their recording of "The Great Litany."

This segment of the TED Radio Hour was produced by Matthew Cloutier and edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour. You can follow us on Facebook @TEDRadioHour and email us at TEDRadioHour@npr.org.