The Book of the Dead in 3D: Mapping Texts and Images on Ancient Egyptian Objects

The ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead is especially known in its two-dimensional version as recorded on funerary papyri. However, selections of these magical spells are also recorded on a series of other items of the tomb, in particular coffins. Thanks to a grant provided by the DH Department of UC Berkeley through the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and in cooperation with the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology and the Archaeological Research Facility, photogrammetric techniques are being utilized in order to create visualizations of coffins with Book of the Dead texts kept at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology in Berkeley. During this talk the preliminary results of this research project will be presented to the public.