Digital-Assisted Repairing of the Six Steeds in Zhao Mausoleum

Abstract

The Six Steeds of Zhao Mausoleum were world-renowned for its realistic style and typical ancient Chinese carving skills. They were carved in memory of the six horses belong to the Emperor Taizong of Tang Dynasty and placed on the north slope of Jiuzong Mountain where the mausoleum of emperor located in. By thousand years efflorescing and destructing, they were seriously damaged, and the majority of the surface details were lost. It is urgent and significant to reconstruct the missing parts and give the entire embossments an integrated vision. Cause of the important historical values and complex artistic surface shape, it is hard to reliably restore the missing parts only using the technical method or artist’s method. By combining mathematic method and sculpture modeling method, this paper put forward a way to restore the damaged embossments in virtual space. It is the first time to give the Six Steeds a trustworthy full sight both in the point of artistic style and archaeology; what’s more, the output data of the research can convert into real parts via the CNC machining equipment.