The Book of the Dead in 3D
Rita Lucarelli, Professor
MELC (Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures)
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Ancient Egyptian coffins are inscribed with spells and images which stand in for spells. All function together as a machine to resurrect the deceased and to guide them safely through the next world. Given this function, it is perhaps surprising that the texts from coffins are usually published completely divorced from their position on the coffin. Any additional meaning conferred on the texts by their placement on the surrogate body or relative to each other and the vignettes is lost. In order to understand a coffin as a magical machine, it's necessary to view the spells in 3D so that this relationship can be taken into account. The aim of this project is to explore the relationship between texts and their positioning on a magical object through building annotated 3D models of coffins displaying the texts and translations.
Role: The student will help the other members of the team (graduate students and postdoc Kea Johnston) in building up 3D models of coffins housed at the Hearst Museum of Berkeley and to implement the annotations on each item (the text in ancient Egyptian will be translated and prepared by the egyptologists of the project team). Since we are currently developing a new viewer and website, the student will work on the migration of the 3D models of coffins present on the older website (https://3dcoffins.berkeley.edu/) to the new platform.
Qualifications: Basic knowledge of Digital Humanities tools and aims; familiarity with photogrammetry and 3D visualizations and annotations, and website design. Preferable (but not necessary) is a basic knowledge of the ancient Egyptian art and funerary culture, or of related fields (archaeology, history of ancient art, ancient history).
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Kea Johnston, Post-Doc
Hours: to be negotiated
Related website: https://3dcoffins.berkeley.edu/
Related website: https://sketchfab.com/bookofthedead3d