FREE London Lecture: Dr Kathryn Piquette, New Developments in Digital Documentation and Representation of Ancient Egyptian Material Culture: Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI)
Event Info
Host: EES
Type: Education - Lecture
Time and Place
Start Time: Wednesday, 12th October 2011, 6:30 pm
End Time: Wednesday, 12th October 2011, 7:30 pm
Location: The Egypt Exploration Society
Street: 3 Doughty Mews
City/Town: London WC1N 2PG
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Contact Details
Email: contact@ees.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)20 7242 1880
Link: http://www.southampton.ac.uk/archaeology/acrg/acrg_research_DEDEFI.html
Description
Entry is free of charge but numbers are limited to 30 so application for tickets as normal is required
For more than a century conventional photography has played a central role in Egyptological research and its dissemination. Increasingly, digital photography and related imaging technologies are transforming the ways in which we undertake Egyptological field and museum research, as well as methods of teaching and learning about ancient Egyptian and Sudanese societies. This lecture presents one of the latest developments in digital photographic methods, namely Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI). This powerful imaging technique uses a combination of digital photography, raking light, and mathematical algorithms to document and visualise artefact surfaces in remarkable detail. During the past year, a collaborative University of Southampton and University of Oxford project has been developing RTI further to create a more portable and accessible system for the photography of inscribed artefacts and other archaeological materials. As part of this research, made possible by funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council's Digital Equipment and Database Enhancement for Impact scheme (see the link above), various Egyptian objects from the Ashmolean Museum, British Museum and World Museum Liverpool were imaged. This lecture presents selected results from this work, focussing on new evidence for scribal and artistic practice, particularly from the Late Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods. Evidence for artefact production and use, including processes of preparing, inscribing and otherwise transforming the material surfaces of wood, bone, ivory, flint, metals and so on will be highlighted. Particularly exciting results include evidence for recarving on the so-called Battlefield and Hunters Palettes. Reflectance Transformation Imaging is a powerful documentation and visualisation tool which presents tremendous potential for enhancing archaeological field research and widening access to cultural heritage via the Internet and other digital modes. In the interest of exploring the potential RTI presents for Egyptology, an additional aim of the lecture will be to discuss together possible future applications for RTI in furthering the work of The Egypt Exploration Society.