3D documentation using terrestrial laser scanning of the remains of the Jesuit Mission in the region of Lake Tana, Ethiopia

Between 1603 and 1633, the religious order of the Jesuits managed to establish Catholicism as official religion in Ethiopia, period in which land grants were conceded, associated to a considerable “foreign” building activity. Nowadays, most of the remains are badly preserved and situated in remote sites, causing problems concerning documentation, conservation and research on that particular cultural heritage. In the present work, terrestrial middle range laser scanning was applied to produce three dimensional digital models of Jesuit remains in the northwestern region of Lake Tana. An overview about the sites history, the instrumentation used and the workflow in data evaluation is given, followed by five practical examples covering all the Jesuit remains in the mentioned region. A special focus is dedicated to the possibility to obtain reflectographic data and to the importance of integrating into such models information achieved by other techniques, such as ground penetrating radar.