Rita Lucarelli creates 3D images of ancient Egyptian coffins. Using Agisoft Photoscan, the Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Studies and her team transform 2D photographs into 3D models before annotating the virtual figures with transliterations, translations, and other relevant data. Since Egyptian hieroglyphics adorning funerary materials were copied and read from different directions, 3D interaction with digitized images provides better access to the texts of such objects than traditional 2D representations.

DH Fellow Rita Lucarelli, Assistant Professor of Egyptology in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, researches religion, magic, and funerary culture in ancient Egypt. Her current work engages the Book of the Dead and how it is adapted to various artifacts. Lucarelli’s digital project focuses on creating highly detailed, annotated 3D models of these funerary objects to better understand the materiality of the Book of the Dead texts.

The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology is raising funds through October 15th to bring The Doctor, a gargantuan Egyptian coffin lid, to the public for the Museum’s grand re-opening in 2016. The 2,500 year-old stone coffin lid weighs three tons and is a particularly rare item in the Heart’s collections.

2014 was a busy year for on-campus hackathons, particularly in the digital humanities realm. (What is a hackathon? Read more here).  Working with partners at the Library and the Phoebe A.