Join us for the CESTA Tuesday lunch seminar on November 19th, from 12:00 to 1:15 pm, featuring "From the Museum back to the Tomb: Virtual Rejoining of a Sarcophagus and its Burial in 26th Dynasty Saqqara" by Rita Lucarelli, Associate Professor of Egyptology at UC Berkeley. Lucarelli will present her team's work on re-placing the sarcophagus of Psamtek, a high-ranking official from the 26th Dynasty, back into its original tomb setting at Saqqara using VR technology. This immersive project, a collaboration between UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, Virginia Tech, and the University of Bonn, combines a 3D reconstruction of Saqqara with a photogrammetric model of the sarcophagus to bridge museum display with archaeological context. Attendees will experience a demo of the VR headset application (currently in development) and gain insight into the "Book of the Dead in 3D" project, which aims to create a database of annotated 3D coffins. RSVP for lunch or to receive the Zoom link here.

Talk Abstract

The Late Period inner sarcophagus of “chief physician” and “overseer of the Temehu (Libyan mercenaries)” Psamtek, found in 1900 in Psamtek’s tomb south of the Unas pyramid at Saqqara, is now on public display in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology in Berkeley, California (PAHMA 5-522). Like many museum objects, its modern display cannot adequately replicate aspects of its original archaeological context ­­— in a deep rock-cut shaft, nestled among hundreds of impressive elite tombs at the necropolis. In order to virtually re-place the sarcophagus in its original context, a joint team from the University of California, Berkeley, University of California Santa Cruz, Viriginia Tech and University of Bonn (Germany) is developing a dynamic VR-headset experience that combines a 3D reconstruction model of Saqqara with a photogrammetric model of the sarcophagus. In this presentation, I will provide a demo of the VR headset application (under development), present the “Book of the Dead in 3D project”, aiming at building a database of annotated 3D coffins as the one of Psamtek, and describe the technological and intellectual challenges of combining multiple types of data in the application.

About the Speaker

Rita Lucarelli is currently an Associate Professor of Egyptology at UC Berkeley and Associate Faculty Curator of Egyptology at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology of the University of California, Berkeley and Fellow of the Digital Humanities in Berkeley. She is presently working at a project aiming at realizing 3D models of ancient Egyptian coffins (http://3dcoffins.berkeley.edu/) and is completing a monograph on demonology in ancient Egypt.