Saudi Arabia Releases Pictures of Black Stone in Mecca
May 06, 2021
In a historic event, the Saudi government has released high-resolution photos of an ancient religious stone in Mecca. These pictures of al-Hajar-al-Aswad or the “black stone” are up to 49,000 megapixels in size and took more than 50 hours to photograph and develop.
As per the report, 1,050 photos of the stone were clicked each up to 160 gigabytes. The General Presidency worked with the Two Holy Mosques' engineering agency while the stone was photographed for seven hours.
Afifi al-Akiti, a fellow in Islamic studies at the University of Oxford said: It's significant because in a sense this is unprecedented,"
'One sees that it's not actually black, for example... As I understand it, it's the first time there is a magnified digital photo of the stone and one can see the stone up close and personal.”
He also added: "In the Muslim tradition, this is considered to be a holy relic, but reason plays a major role in the Muslim tradition... So while it is unprecedented to see a picture of the stone, I think Muslims are down to Earth and science plays a major role in the religion,".
The pictures of the Black Stone were posted on social media and soon, the hashtag #BlackStone also started trending on Twitter in Saudi Arabia:
Technical Information
— ???????????????????????????????? (@HaramainInfo) May 3, 2021
Shooting Time: 7 hours.
Number of Photos: 1050 Fox Stack Panorama.
Image Resolution: 49,000 Mega Pixels.
Processing Time: More Than 50 Working Hours. https://t.co/E9xktWDGJr pic.twitter.com/MOUWWJZbHA
The Saudi Arabian authority told the media that a special technique called Fox Stack Panorama has been used, which combines multiple photos with different focus points to keep the finished product sharp.