Egypt
The Economist
- Exhibition: Picturing The Past At The Oi
Oriental Institute February 7 - September 2, 2012, Oriental Institute, Chicago. Download the Show Catalog in Adode Portable Document Format (pdf) Picturing the Past presents paintings, architectural reconstructions, facsimiles, casts, models, photographs,...
- Repairing The Book Of The Dead
Brooklyn Museum (Rachel Danzing) With photos. Repairing papyrus can be a little like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. In order to make sense of the many small pieces at hand, we take advantage of the various examination techniques we have here in the...
- Technology To Throw New Light On Ancient Artifacts
Science Daily New technology which makes it possible to study the finer details of some of the world's greatest historical artifacts has been developed by computer scientists and archaeologists at the University of Southampton in conjunction with...
- 'super-scope' To See Hidden Texts
More about using light beams to reveal texts on unreadable manuscripts. The hidden content in ancient works could be illuminated by a light source 10 billion times brighter than the Sun. The technique employs Britain's new facility, the Diamond synchrotron,...
- Digital Hieroglyphs
http://tinyurl.com/qzj9b (alphagalileo.org)News resource AlphaGalileo reports on an article about digitization of hieroglyphs in the latest edition of New Scientist: "The hieroglyphics that cover the columns and walls of Egyptian temples are in danger...
Egypt
Shining a light on the past
The Economist
Not specific to Egyptology but may well be of use here as elsewhere. Having spent part of an afternoon under a black-out sheet with a carved rock, a fellow archaeologist and a high powered torch each to try and work out the patterns carved into the weathered surface I can well appreciate the potential of the technique!!
LOOK at an ancient coin under ordinary light and the chances are that its features, worn down by its passage from hand to hand, will be hard to make out. Point a spotlight at it, though, so that the face of the coin is illuminated from an acute angle, and the resulting shadows will emphasise any minor details.
This is the basic principle behind a novel technique that is helping archaeologists reveal previously invisible clues hidden in the worn or damaged surfaces of any objects they uncover. From wall paintings in Herculaneum to Scandinavian stone tools to rock art in Libya, polynomial texture mapping, as the process is known, is proving an invaluable way to illuminate the past.
The Antikythera in a new light
The lighting method was originally developed by Tom Malzbender, a computer scientist at HP’s laboratory in Palo Alto, California, to generate better 3-D imagery for computer games. In its most basic form, the process involves capturing between 30 and 50 digital photos of an object of interest. The pictures are taken from directly above the object in a darkened room. Though the camera is fixed, the object is lit from a different angle in every shot. The photos are then combined on a computer to create an image that can have a “virtual” light shone from various angles to reveal any hidden surface detail.
- Exhibition: Picturing The Past At The Oi
Oriental Institute February 7 - September 2, 2012, Oriental Institute, Chicago. Download the Show Catalog in Adode Portable Document Format (pdf) Picturing the Past presents paintings, architectural reconstructions, facsimiles, casts, models, photographs,...
- Repairing The Book Of The Dead
Brooklyn Museum (Rachel Danzing) With photos. Repairing papyrus can be a little like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. In order to make sense of the many small pieces at hand, we take advantage of the various examination techniques we have here in the...
- Technology To Throw New Light On Ancient Artifacts
Science Daily New technology which makes it possible to study the finer details of some of the world's greatest historical artifacts has been developed by computer scientists and archaeologists at the University of Southampton in conjunction with...
- 'super-scope' To See Hidden Texts
More about using light beams to reveal texts on unreadable manuscripts. The hidden content in ancient works could be illuminated by a light source 10 billion times brighter than the Sun. The technique employs Britain's new facility, the Diamond synchrotron,...
- Digital Hieroglyphs
http://tinyurl.com/qzj9b (alphagalileo.org)News resource AlphaGalileo reports on an article about digitization of hieroglyphs in the latest edition of New Scientist: "The hieroglyphics that cover the columns and walls of Egyptian temples are in danger...