Upon mandate of the Holy Monastery of St. Neophytos the Recluse in Paphos, the UNESCO Chair on Digital Cultural Heritage at Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) provided the complex digitisation, full digital documentation and long-term preservation of the hermitage of St. Neophytos, a series of interconnecting hand carved caves richly adorned with frescoes from the 12th century, with scopes of monitoring, conservation and protection planning as part of its designation as a “Monument at risk”.
The 3D model is published as open access record in the EUreka3D Data Hub, and aggregated in Europeana in the context of Twin.it for Cyprus.
Saint Neophytos the Recluse, also known as Saint Neophytos of Cyprus, lived as a hermit and left a vast theological and cultural imprint on the history of his homeland and the Orthodox world at large. Saint Neophytos’ painted cave – the enkleistra, literally meaning ‘place of enclosure’ – formed the nucleus of a community of disciples that in the 13th century expanded and resulted in the building of the catholicon (church with bapistry) and the monastery just opposite. The monastery thrives to the present day and preserves the relics of Saint Neophytos and many of the manuscripts he wrote.
- Read the post on Europeana.eu: https://www.europeana.eu/en/stories/saint-neophytos
Three different methods were utilised to capture the interior of the enkleistra: traditional photography for photogrammetric reconstruction, Terrestrial Laser Scanning (recording both point cloud data and colour imagery) and Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) mobile scanning. The enkleistra has poor natural lighting and fixed artificial lighting arranged to highlight specific aspects of the frescoes. The latter conditions combined with the irregular nature of the surfaces present problems when attempting photographic capture even when moderated by portable lighting that aims to minimise shadows and changes in lighting contrast. Of the three methods, only photography and laser scanning produced results of sufficient quality to attempt reconstruction. In total 8.52GB of point cloud data (e57 format) and 1.54GB of complementary panorama imagery was acquired from nine scan positions. Photography acquired 14.58GB of data in 2,766 images. All the raw data of the digitisation, complemented with holistic documentation of the monument and additional resources, are made available in the EUreka3D Data Hub.
- Access the model, its metadata and links to all documentation on EUreka3D Data Hub
XR experience: A new life for the Enkleistra of St. Neophytos
The Saint Neophytos Enkeistra is the focus of a XR/VR prototype pilot in the context of the EUreka3D-XR project, presented officially on 24th May 2026 on the occasion of the final event of the project in Cyprus.
Read more about the demonstration event in the Press Release (PDF)
Join the final event of the project: https://eureka3d.eu/eureka3dxr-final-event/
Read about the XR applicaton prototype (PDF)