Of the tombs in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, that belonging to Seti I was widely acknowledged to be the most opulent and lavishly decorated. Seti I was pharaoh during the first half of the 13th century BCE; though the dates aren’t completely clear, generally his reign is thought to have run from 1294 or 1290 to 1274. After his burial, it was not until 1817 that his tomb was officially discovered by Giovanni Battist Belzoni; however, it had been looted previously and his body was not actually discovered until 1881.
The tomb was highly influential during the time directly following its creation; according to Egyptologists Nicholas Reeves and Richard H. Wilkinson the style of the tomb was “followed fully or in part by every succeeding tomb through the rest of the valley’s history.” Tutankhamun’s tomb has garnered a great deal more attention because of its intact state, but Seti I’s tomb has always been the jewel in the eye of Adam Lowe, founder of the Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation and the man whose pet project has been to scan the tomb and give it a new accessibility in the form of a 3D printed replica.
Recording Of The Tomb Of Seti I from factum-arte on Vimeo.
Despite the fact that Seti’s tomb is Lowe’s first love, even for him it was overshadowed for a time by that of Tutankhamun. In 2001, when Lowe first began to plan for the scan of Seti’s tomb he was, for a time, diverted into the project of scanning Tutankhamun’s. Only in 2016 was he able to devote his attentions to Seti’s resting place and the completed scans of two of the complex’s rooms are now on display in Basel’s Antikenmuseum. Every square inch of the two rooms presented at the museum was 3D scanned using the FARO Focus 3DX 130 laser scanner and the Lucida Laser Scanner. The Lucida scanner was, in fact, developed specially for this project by Manuel Franquelo and is capable of scanning a 48 x 48 cm area in one hour. While the resolution of the Lucida scanner is breathtaking, the data gathered is not compatible with that gathered by the FARO and required the development of a special protocol in order to create a holistic 3D digital replica.
The hyper realist detail in the scans means that it can be hard to distinguish between the real and virtual, and the realization of this potential is changing the approach to museumology and the very acts of collecting around the world. In fact, it is possible to enjoy the virtual replica even if you cannot travel to Basel itself, meaning that this kind of scanning and replication opens up access to sites to anyone who has an internet connection. The next step for Lowe and the Factum Foundation is to continue scanning, beginning with the crypt, the tomb’s next largest chamber. For this, they will utilize a team of ten local Egyptologists and Lowe hopes to raise €10 million (approximately $11.6 million USD) to fund the efforts. The first member of the team, Egyptian Egyptologist Aliaa Ismail, has already trained two of her colleagues in using the scanning technology.
“The reintegration of original elements or the mix of original facsimile elements is a complex subject. But the potential of facsimile reconstructions is again attracting public interest as it did in the second half of the nineteenth [century] when the cast courts opened at the V&A. The regeneration of damaged and dispersed objects assists understanding without putting the original object at risk. It focuses attention and results in a deeper appreciation both of the object and the reasons it looks as it does today.”
Reassembling the tombs would require enormously complex and delicate negotiations with museums, governments, and individuals the world over and many are loathe to give up their pieces of this decidedly popular history. Conversations and outright arguments about repatriation of something as large as a tomb are not viewed with a great deal of optimism. However, with Lowe’s scan, the Hall of Beauties and the Pillared Room can make their way around the world without so much as a scratch, meaning that while damage has been done, there are at least possibilities to disincentivize the wholesale robbery that has previously been the norm.
The recognition of the potential that these 3D technologies have for the transportation of distant wonders to all four corners of the world is ushering in a new era of both shared information and respect for physical possession. This is just the beginning of the creation of databases that will allow scholars and aficionados access on an unprecedented level to all of the glories of the shared history of humanity.
For a detailed description of both the state of the tomb and the process of its documentation and replication, Factum has released a 40-page booklet on their website.
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[Source: CNN / Images: Factum Foundation]