Digital Rendering of Ancient Books

Overview

Through archaeological excavations or even chance discoveries, people around the world have uncovered artifacts from the past. Many times, they are extremely delicate due to decay caused by exposure to their natural surroundings. Ancient codices of books, such as scrolls and cuneiform tablets, are no exception to this phenomenon. Book historians are in a race against time and natural decay to uncover and analyze the records of the ancient world that still survive. In the past, it was common for historians to set aside overly delicate pieces in hopes of future technology that would allow for the study of the artifact. Now, using advancing technologies such as micro CT scanners, scholars are able to digitally scan and preserve these artifacts. They are able to study the digital version of the texts using less intrusive methods that contribute to the conservation of these pieces of history into the future.

Micro CT Scanning

Archaeological use of CT scanners involves the use of X-rays aimed at the artifact. Rather than being stationary, the object is rotated around an axis. The X-rays are emitted from the front through the object, and then 2d images are collected on an X-ray detector that is placed behind the object. This technology has been in use in geology and paleontology for a couple decades, however, there have been advances in its software analysis. This technology can also be used for other fields, such as medicine and biology. More information on micro-CT scanning can be found here.

For more information regarding the methodology of X-raying for different inks and paper manuscripts, and how this methodology came to be, there is a paper published in the Scientific Reports section of the science magazine, Nature, that is linked here.

Software Development

At the University of Kentucky, a computer scientist named W. Brent Seales created a software program that now allow book historians to recover the texts of old codices, such as ancient scrolls. Previously, according to a 2016 New York Times article, "methods like CT scans can pick out blobs of ink inside a charred scroll, but the jumble of letters is unreadable unless each letter can be assigned to the surface on which it is written. Dr. Seales realized that the writing surface of the scroll had first to be reconstructed and the letters then stuck back to it. He succeeded in 2009 in working out the physical structure of the ruffled layers of papyrus in a [Herculaneum Scrolls]. He has since developed a method, called virtual unwrapping, to model the surface of an ancient scroll in the form of a mesh of tiny triangles. Each triangle can be resized by the computer until the virtual surface makes the best fit to the internal structure of the scroll, as revealed by the scanning method. The blobs of ink are assigned to their right place on the structure, and the computer then unfolds the whole 3-D structure into a 2-D sheet." His work can be demonstrated in this video, where the virtual unwrapping of an ancient biblical scroll called the En-Gedi scroll is shown.

For more information about the En Gedi Scroll and other digital research that the University of Kentucky's Educe Lab has done, please visit their website.

For Dr. Seale and his team's research paper about the En Gedi Scroll, please visit here.

Micro CT-Scanning Other Codices

M.910

In 2018, New York Times published another article that detailed Dr. Seales work with the Morgan Library and Museum in New York in regards to a codex named M.910. This time, the codex was an ancient book with text written on both sides of the page, different from scrolls that Dr. Seales had previously analyzed, which only have text written on one side of the page. This adds a level of complexity to unraveling the text written in this ancient book. The team is still working on analyzing and deciphering the charred remains of the book.

Prior to scanning the actual artifact, a prototype with similar dimensions to the original M.910 needed to be made in order to test the scanning and the software. The prototype model maker, Melissa Moreton, created a blog about her experience creating the model and also provides a general summary of the process behind scanning and analyzing M.910.

Cuneiform Clay Tablets

A clay tablet is a codex that people in ancient Syria used as a way to record information. Some of these tablets were covered by an outer layer of clay that acted as an envelope of sorts. Micro CT scanners have been used in order to digitally image both the envelope as well as the inner contents so that historians no longer need to break the outer layer of clay in order to access the inner contents. This allows for preservation and analysis of both the exterior and the interior, something that could not have been done in the past. The study of these cuneiform clay tablets were done by the Universiteit Leiden as well as Delft University of Technology.

Herculaneum Scrolls

The Herculaneum Scrolls are ancient scrolls that were carbonized by Mount Vesuvius' infamous eruption in 79AD. Although this preserved them, it also left them in a very delicate and fragile state that made them nearly impossible to study. Dr. Seales and his team have begun to tackle the study of these papyrus scrolls in collaboration with both the Insitut de France as well as Diamond Light Source, one of the most powerful and sophisticated X-ray facilities in the world. The Smithsonian magazine published an article in 2018 regarding this advancement in the study of the Herculaneum papyrus scrolls.

The University of Kentucky also has more information on their website. They also link an article published in PLOS ONE that details the discovery of carbon ink using xray imaging. The Diamond Light Source also released an article regarding the study.

Academic Institutions Conducting Research

The University of Kentucky: EduceLab| A Digital Restoration Initiative