We have all heard about Babylon.  Already legendary in antiquity for its great walls, its man-made terraces of flora known as the Hanging Gardens — one of the Seven Wonders of the World — and especially for its great learning and culture.  But what happens when the past meets modern technology?

Recently, YDC2 had the opportunity to partner with the Yale Babylonian Collection.  This collection has the largest assemblage of seals, documents and other ancient Mesopotamian artifacts in the U.S. and is one of the leading collections of cuneiform tablets in the world.  This collection is also noteworthy for its close ties to an academic department where it upholds the University’s mission of teaching and learning.  To learn more about the Yale Babylonian Collection, please visit their website.

The major aim of this joint demonstration project is to create documentation of cuneiform tablets for application in research.  Fourteen objects have been selected with a variety of themes. Here are some of the highlights: For Old Assyrian tablets, we have a marriage proposal and a fragment of an envelope.  An interesting feature of this fragment is that it still retains the ‘mirror’ image of the letter it once enveloped because the clay was still wet when it was wrapped around the letter.  There are a few mathematical tablets to be imaged.  One is a demonstration of finding the diagonal of a square using the square root of 2.  One is an unsolved math problem which scholars, to this day, are still trying to solve.  We will also be imaging a letter from Nebuchadnezzar, as well as the first known example of a contract killing and a tablet containing part of the story of Gilgamesh.

For the first time ever, these pieces will be imaged using RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging), 3D imaging and MSI (Multispectral Imaging) as well as having high resolution photos taken of them.

Imaging of these objects began this week so stay tuned for the next part of this three part story!

The Babylonian Collection Reading Room contains an extensive Assyriological research library. In the background is a replica of the famous Stele of Hammurabi.  Photo taken by Lee Payne.

Several rooms of Sterling Memorial Library were designed specifically for the Babylonian Collection, as a result the window medallions display Mesopotamian themes.  Photo taken by Lee Payne.

An example of an unopened envelope, with the tablet visible inside. This is a record concerning barley for beer, ca. 2100 B.C.E.  Photo taken by Lee Payne.

Early last summer, YDC2 worked with the post-docs to image a bust of Alexander Pope by Louis Francois Roubiliac (see our post– Have 3D scanner, will travel).  On February 6, the YDC2 Imaging Lab, along with the Computer Science department, continued the collaboration with the Yale Center for British Arts (YCBA) on the second part of this project.

The YCBA was planning a new exhibit:  Fame and Friendship:  Pope,  Roubiliac and the Portrait Bust of Eighteenth Century Britain.  Louis Francois Roubiliac produced eight sculptural representations of Alexander Pope which are now spread out among different collections around the world.  This exhibit would be the first time all eight busts would be together in approximately 50 years.  The YCBA requested the application of 3D laser scanning to yield digital replicas in the hopes of determining the chronology of the creation of the busts.  The 3D models would not only give researchers surface geometry but also dimensions of Pope’s features and how the tool mark placement varied between busts.

As the busts could not travel to the Imaging Lab, Jessica Slawski, Chelsea Graham, and Ying Yang set up the ShapeGrabber 3D laser scanning equipment in the YCBA. Chelsea, along with Ruggero Pintus and Ying Yang, Postdoctoral Fellows for the Computer Science department, began scanning the busts on February 6.  Once the busts were unpacked, they were photographed by YCBA staff.  After their photo shoot, the busts then began the 3D scanning process which took about 4 hours per bust.  When this process was complete, the busts were moved to the exhibit area to be installed.  Due to time constraints, only 4 of the busts were able to be 3D scanned before they were installed for the exhibit.  The hope is that the remaining 4 busts will be imaged during the exhibit de-installation.  The post processing of these 3D models will take up to 30 hours per bust.  Once the models are done, researchers will be able to overlay the models on top of each other to compare features and tool marks.

For more information on the Pope project, please see the following articles:

YCBA Pope Bust Scanning Project

The many faces of Alexander Pope: Illuminating art history through digital imaging

Chelsea Graham and Ying Yang set up the ShapeGrabber 3D laser scanner to start scanning the Pope busts for the Yale Center for British Art exhibit.

While many of the busts were marble, this one was unique as it was made out of terracotta. Terracotta bust of Alexander Pope by Louis Francois Roubiliac. On loan from the Barber Institute. Photo by Chelsea Graham.

Ying Yang and Chelsea Graham examine the 3D model of the Pope bust compiled by the scans of the ShapeGrabber laser scanner. The empty spots on the 3D model denote areas that the laser scanner was not able to reach. The bust needed to be turned so the laser could reach these areas and produce scans of the missing areas.  The scans would then be added to the 3D model filling in the missing spaces.

Once all of the scans of the bust have been completed, Chelsea Graham checks to make sure there are no ‘holes’, or missing data, in the 3D model. When this is confirmed, the model will then be post processed and the image ‘cleaned up’ to remove any extra data that was scanned along with the bust.

Once the 3D model was completed on the computer, it was then fed to a Makerbot 3D printer. The Makerbot printer lays down layer after layer of warm plastic and slowly builds the Pope bust from the ground up. The columns are support structures for various features on the bust such as the shoulders, ears and nose. Once the bust is finished printing and is cooled, these support structures can be broken off without harming the 4 inch bust underneath.  Photo by Chelsea Graham.

Analytical or computational imaging offers important new tools for scholarship in the humanities. Computational imaging technologies can support the collection of replicable data about cultural heritage objects that allow scholars and conservators to answer questions about artifacts that cannot be answered by means of simple visual inspection. YDC2 is supporting a project that will use multispectral imaging (MSI) of medieval manuscripts to provide additional data about the inks and pigments used in their creation as part of the Digitally Enabled Scholarship with Medieval Manuscripts project.

With invaluable support from Beinecke Library colleagues Ray Clemens, Curator for Early Books and Manuscripts and Chris Edwards, Head of the Digital Studio, last week Ruggero Pintus and Ying Yang, Post-Doctoral Fellows from the Computer Science department were able to multispectrally image the entire third recension of the Confessio Amantis,1392-93 by John Gower.  These images of the Gower manuscript promise to reveal additional information about how it was written and illustrated while the set-up process was important preparation for taking the technology on the road to other repositories of medieval manuscripts. Many thanks to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library for supporting this work.

A multispectral image is one that captures image data at specific frequencies across the electromagnetic spectrum.   Spectral imaging can allow extraction of additional information the human eye fails to capture.  Multispectral imaging aims at providing a description of the reflective properties of a surface.  Multispectral images provide a more precise color analysis which makes these images suitable for the monitoring or restoration of artwork as well as any research activities that require high quality color information. – See more at: http://ydc2imaginglab.commons.yale.edu/#sthash.FPGLLoXx.dpuf

Ruggero and Ying explained that the entirety of the Gower manuscript was acquired with an 8-band, high-resolution multispectral camera and a Xenon light source that emits from ultra-violet to infra-red wavelengths, in a completely dark room. The raw data is a set of high dynamic range (16bit) images. The multispectral camera resolution is 2504×3326 pixels (8.3Mpixels), and for each multi-spectral acquisition we have eight images (one for each band).  This set-up has spectral sampling intervals (about 50nm) similar to those employed by Ricciardi et al. [1], which demonstrated that the limited set of pigments used in manuscript illuminations can be at least separated and sometimes identified, even when mixed, by acquiring images at moderate spectral sampling intervals (50 nm) under low light levels (∼150 lux) while having high spatial sampling (∼250 pixels per in). Thus, the acquired data will allow us to study the distribution of different elements across the manuscript page, to map out similarities in measured color/material/pigment, and to achieve the more robust, objective specification of them.

[1] Ricciardi, P., Delaney, J.K., Glinsman, L.D., Thoury, M., Facini, M. & de la Rie, E.R. 2009. Use of Visible and Infrared Reflectance and Luminescence Imaging Spectroscopy to Study Illuminated Manuscripts: Pigment Identification and Visualization of Underdrawings. In: L. Pezzati & R. Salimbeni, eds. Proceedings of SPIE, O3A: Optics for Arts, Architecture, and Archaeology II. Bellingham, WA: SPIE, vol. 7391, pp. 739106–12.

This is the setup used to multispectral scan a manuscript at the Beinecke library. The multispectral camera is mounted on a copy stand with a 1 meter column. The xenon light (UV) source is mounted on a separate tripod. Color targets are used to callibrate the camera. Once this is completed, the manuscript will be laid out on the copy stand and images of each page will be taken one at a time.

The color target and spectralon (white and grey target) are used to help callibrate the 8 multispectral camera filters: 6 in the visible range, 1 in the ultraviolet (UV) range and 1 in the infrared (IR) range.

This photo shows the manuscript open so the right pages can be acquired by the multispectral camera.

The manuscript is supported by foam as the book is rotated and the photographing of the left pages begins. A velvet ‘snake’ weight is used to the hold the right pages down so that they don’t move into the shots of the left pages.

This is a closeup of a section of the Gower manuscript.

This is a closeup view of some of the intricate scrollwork found in the Gower manuscript.

This week in the Imaging Lab, the Yale Peabody Museum is collaborating with the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations department (NELC) to photograph Nubian artifacts for documentation purposes.  NELC will be using Project Room 3 and the Hasselblad camera on the vacuum copystand to take high resolution photos of the artifacts.  This equipment allows them to get highly detailed images that can be used for publication purposes.  They will also be scanning old documents and maps related to this collection.  Here is a little background on the project:

The Toskha Project

In 2008, the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in collaboration with the Yale Egyptological Institute in Egypt (NELC department) began a re-examination of the material from Nubian cemeteries of the so-called Simpson Collection.

In 1962, as part of the UNESCO Nubian salvage campaign, the Pennsylvania-Yale Expedition to Egypt excavated several archaeological sites in the area of Toshka. This expedition, directed by William K. Simpson professor of Egyptology, was a component of a larger campaign carried out between 1961 and 1963 that examined the region of Toshka and Arminna in Lower Nubia. Nubia is a region along the Nile river located in southern Egypt and northern Sudan.  Several monographs resulted from this work, however, much of the archaeological material—particularly the Nubian Bronze Age cemeteries—remains unpublished.

The imaging project aims to produce a monograph with a systematic catalogue of graves and funerary offerings from Toshka West (TW) Cemeteries B, C, and D, the site of Gebel Agg at Toshka East (TE), and miscellaneous sites.

General information on burial ground and graves, including a sketch of shaft and inhumation, has been obtained from the original field notes, now housed at the West Campus Peabody Anthropology unit as part of the Simpson Archive. There are maps, photos and a few drawings from the original archive. The new high resolution photos of pottery vessels and jewelry, once part of the funerary offerings, are being taken to improve the quality of the documentation.

West Campus Peabody Anthropology unit:  Roger Colten, Maureen White and Rebekah DeAngelo

Egyptology:  Maria Gatto, Colleen Manassa and Alberto Urcia

Alberto Urcia is the digital surveying and virtual archaeology expert of the Yale Egyptological Institute and the person in charge of photographing the objects.

Nubian artifacts from the Anthropology division of the Yale Peabody Museum waiting to be photographed.

Alberto Urcia, Associate Research Scientist for Yale Egyptological Institute, manually adjusts the camera to make sure that certain areas of the artifact are in focus.

In an effort to remove shadows from the photograph, Alberto lights the artifact with an additional light source.

While normally used to shoot straight down, the camera on the vacuum copystand has been rotated 45 degrees to photograph the sides of all of the artifacts.

Alberto checks the clarity of the high resolution photograph. High resolution photographs allow researchers to view scratches, cracks and traces of paint at a high magnification.

The first project in the Imaging Lab is in full swing!   Indo-Pacific textiles from the Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) are being photographed in Studio 2 with a camera mounted on the catwalk. This is unique because it is the first time we have had a studio this large to photography items from this height.  The catwalk allows photographers to mount cameras anywhere between 15 feet and 17 feet in the air which allows them to cover a larger area when spreading items out on the floor.  Here is a little background information on the project:

Established in 2009, the Department of Indo-Pacific Art oversees the newest collection at the Yale University Art Gallery and has three areas of strength: ethnographic sculpture, ancient Javanese gold, and Indonesian textiles.

The textile collection holds about 600 textiles from Indonesia, mainly collected by Robert Holmgren and Anita Spertus. This group is of exceptional quality and ranks among the finest in any museum. The collection includes particularly superb textiles from South Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Borneo, and it includes rare and unique weavings that reflect the history of Indonesian designs.

The Indo-Pacific textiles were selected to be photographed in their entirety as part of the annual project photography to meet an increasing demand from scholars and the curator for good-quality images. YUAG plans to publish a book on the collection.

Coordinated by the Visual Resources department at YUAG, contract photographer Chris Gardner and a team of 6 Gallery staff are photographing the collection in high-resolution digital format over a seven week period. Once photographed the images will be stored in the YDC2 Content Management Platform  and made publically available on the YUAG’s website and through Discover Yale Digital Content. Most all of the objects photographed will also be available for download from the YUAG website as either PowerPoint sized JPEGs or 20MB Tiff files.

Chris Gardner, contract photographer for the Indo-Pacific textile project, makes adjustments to the camera mounted to the catwalk so that he can accurately photograph the textiles laid out on the floor below.

Ben Diebold and Jac Parker from YUAG carefully unwrap the Indo-Pacific textiles and make sure the correct barcodes are associated with the correct textiles before they get photographed.

Jac Parker, from YUAG, carefully unrolls an Indo-Pacific textile onto vinyl dance floor material while removing the acid free tissue paper that was placed between the layers of the fabric.

Chris Gardner and Ben Diebold move the textile into place so that it will be in the right position under the camera to be photographed.

Chris Gardner and Susan Kiss photograph an Indo-Pacific textile using a camera mounted to the catwalk 17 feet in the air.

Chris Gardner and Susan Kiss carefully place the Indo-Pacific textile on the acid free tissue paper so that it can then be rolled up onto the acid free tube for storage. By rolling the textiles, instead of folding them, the textiles remain crease-free.

Some of the textiles are large and need two people to unroll them. Ben Diebold and Elizabeth Solak position the textile so that it will unroll directly under the camera that is mounted to the catwalk above.

Once the textile is laid out, any foreign fibers need to be removed before the textile is photographed. Here, Elizabeth Solak removes these unwanted fibers with a pair of tweezers. Ben Diebold makes sure that the textile lies flat for the shot.

With the help of two art handlers, Ruth Barnes, Curator of Indo-Pacific Art, lays out an exceptionally long textile in a snake-like pattern in preparation for a photo.