this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
692 points (99.4% liked)
Science
13263 readers
70 users here now
Subscribe to see new publications and popular science coverage of current research on your homepage
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
What I would like to know is if tablets like this are being scanned digitally into three dimensions so that they can be reproduced. I feel like everything we find from antiquity needs to be scanned this way. With humans constantly going to war destroying history, I'd hate the idea of losing things like this forever.
UPDATE: And thus a journey down the interwebs rabbit hole begins. I need better internet and PC to check this out more later, but answering my own question, here's the entrance to the rabbit hole should others wish to venture with a few examples:
Didn’t all kinds of antiquities get destroyed in Iraq? Totally irreplaceable stuff.
As you alluded, probably common in many places. How sad.
Most recently I remember it happening really really badly within Syria. Very intentional destruction. But yes, it happens all the time--Iraq included. With the technology we have now, we can preserve a lot of it (digitally at least).
I hate how it's so damn hard to find these things and yet so easy to destroy it.
A lot was destroyed but a lot of it was looted and and sold to sleazy collectors. Remember when the guy who owns Hobby Lobby got caught buying looted artifacts?
Still horrible, obviously, but at least there’s some hope looted items will be recovered.
I wonder how many artifacts could be recovered if we could search all the rich people mansions...
Yea ISIS and other extremist groups like to destroy evidence of their ancestor’s greatness for some reason.
Lesser sons of lesser sons
I recall there was at least one location which was 3D scanned and photographed in detail before ISIS destroyed it, so at least not all of it is lost.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3052498/these-3d-scans-are-digitally-saving-ancient-monuments-before-isis-blows-them-up
https://apnews.com/general-news-travel-arts-and-entertainment-dbca5e23519f44c4a881c9cd69f41cd6
Oh man.
It's only recently that the idea of "archaeology" has been a thing. Before then there were only "antiquarians" which were just looters.
Often they had royal backers. There's a podcast series called "stuff the British stole"
There's pretty well documented instances in the 1800s in Egypt, and pompeii.
Honestly the amount of amazing stuff that has just been "collected" is just eye watering.
That puts some of my own knowledge into perspective :)
There's also the https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/about Obviously, losing a dimension isn't great but still pretty cool