Ancient Egyptian coffins are fascinating artefacts whose rich and complex icongraphic and textual decoration provides a central source for the study of the ancient Egyptian religion and funerary culture. During this lecture, I will present my project "The Book of the Dead in 3D," which uses photgrammetry for the analysis of illustrated and textualised Egyptian coffins kept at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology of UC Berkeley. In particular, I will explain how three-dimensional visualizations are extremely useful for studying the physicality of the magical texts (many of them belonging to the so-called "Book of the Dead") copied on the coffins. The technical issues encountered while building the 3D models with Agisoft Photoscan software will be also presented while discussing the important role that photgrammetry and 3D techniques of visualizations are playing in the current research on ancient artefacts and archaeological contexts in Egypt. Register Here.
Rita Lucarelli is the Assistant Professor of Egyptology in the department of Near Eastern Studies. She is also the Assistant Curator of Egyptology at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology of the University of California, Berkeley and Fellow of the Digital Humanities at Berkeley. Rita Lucarelli is completing a monograph on demonology in ancient Egypt and she is one of the coordinators of the Ancient Egyptian Demonology Project.
About the Series
The Digital Humanities Fellows Lecture Series brings together the campus DH community for the scholarly presentation and informal discussion of specific aspects of digital humanities practice. Each meeting a different Fellow presents their ongoing work before the conversation is opened to hands-on experimentation in addition to questions, and comments. Intended to further the critical understanding and practice of the digital humanities at Berkeley, these lectures are intended for both existing and prospective DH practitioners.