THE British Museum is to make near-perfect replicas of 1000 cuneiform tablets in its collection and send them back to Iraq for display and study. The plan, agreed last year, has taken on extra significance following this year鈥檚 war, when many of the country鈥檚 museums were looted.
The collection at the British Museum consists of some 25,000 tablet pieces from the library of King Ashurbanipal, who ruled Assyria in 650 BC. The subjects covered by the pieces range from the heroic to the mundane: they include parts of the Gilgamesh epic, one of the oldest recorded stories in the world, a Babylonian record of King Nebuchadnezzar鈥檚 capture of Jerusalem in 597 BC, and everyday lists of farming stocks.
Iraq has never asked to have these tablets back. But last spring, an archaeologist from the University of Mosul did ask the British Museum to provide them with copies of about 1000 tablets for display in a new centre for Assyriology, to be funded in part using Iraq鈥檚 oil income, channelled through UNESCO. 鈥淲e had to say yes鈥� to such a humble request, says Chris Walker, curator of the collection at the British Museum.
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Since then, Walker has been exploring how best to make copies of the fragile tablets, whose detailed engravings are just a millimetre high. Archaeologists and artists are already skilled at using simple casts to make copies, but the silicone or latex used to make the casts can sometimes harm the surface of a delicate piece. Instead, Walker has asked a British company, Kestrel 3D, to make digital copies of the objects using laser scanners.
Kestrel鈥檚 laser system, which was originally developed by Canada鈥檚 National Research Council for space and military applications, is accurate to 0.1 millimetres. This digital information can then be used to create a virtual copy of the tablet that can be viewed over the internet. Alternatively, it can be laser 鈥減rinted鈥� into a three-dimensional hard copy made of plastic or resin (快猫短视频, 30 September 2000, p 24). The models can be painted for display, or used as casts to make copies in more authentic materials such as clay.
So far, Kestrel has scanned two tablet fragments (see above). Walker is now waiting to see the final models, which have been made by a specialist prototyping company, to see if they are detailed enough for display and for scholars who wish to study the inscriptions. 鈥淚鈥檓 keeping my fingers crossed,鈥� he says. But the biggest benefit, he points out, will be having digital master copies that cannot be destroyed 鈥� or looted.
Most archaeologists agree with the decision to send copies to Iraq, rather than the real thing. 鈥淭hey are very fragile, are well kept and safe. The British Museum is one of the world centres for this research, and Mosul will not be easy to get to for most scholars in the field,鈥� says Samuel Paley, an archaeologist at the University at Buffalo, New York. 鈥淭o move them would be exceedingly costly.鈥�