Saturday, April 07, 2007

Digital archive of Ancient Egypt's art and architecture

Thanks to Tony Marson for the following:
http://tinyurl.com/2xlcf2 (dsc.discovery.com)
"Italian publisher De Agostini is working on a project which aims to produce the most complete digital archive of Egypt's ancient art and architecture.
New imaging technology can detect and even revive faded paintings. The technology has yielded, for the first time, accurate reproductions of the tombs' scenes that were supposed to guide dead pharaohs through the afterlife.
'Corridor paintings on 10-meter-large, 4-meter-high (33 by 13 feet) walls can't be photographed with conventional techniques,' Sandro Vannini, the photographer who devised the technology, told Discovery News. . . . Each photograph consists of four shots clarified by special noise-eliminating software. They can then be combined into a single image."

There's a lovely photograph from the tomb of Nefertari at:
http://tinyurl.com/22rqcf

And a slideshow to accompany the article is at:

Finally, there's a video about the journey into the afterlife, at:

UPDATE:
Re the Slideshow, please note - some of the captions are incorrect, for example mixing up Nefertiti and Nefertari, and placing Nefertari's tomb in the Valley of the Kings. But the photographs are good. Thanks to Chris Towsend and Gilberto Sozzani for pointing these out to me.
Also, thanks to Jane Akshar's blog for pointing out that the new visitor centre in the Valley of the Kings, said by the article to be opening later this month, is actually already open.

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