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The Digital Restoration Initiative: Reading the Invisible Library

November 14, 2019 @ 5:00 pm EST

Wellesley College, Clapp Library Lecture Room
106 Central Street
Wellesley, MA 02481 United States


AIA Society: Boston

Lecturer: W. Brent Seales

Damaged artifacts that contain text make up an “invisible library” of written material that is incredibly difficult to read.  But progress over the past decade using new computer techniques for the digitization and analysis of text found in cultural objects (inscriptions, manuscripts, scrolls) has led to workable, non-invasive methods for reading this invisible library.  This talk shows results over the past two decades from digital restoration projects on Homeric manuscripts, Herculaneum material, and Dead Sea scrolls, culminating in the reading of the text from within a damaged scroll unearthed at En-Gedi, which has been hailed as one of the most significant discoveries in biblical archaeology of the past decade.  Premised on “virtual unwrapping” as an engine for discovery, this presentation explains the complete process developed for reading the scroll from En-Gedi, and the broader significance of the discovery.  The talk concludes by unveiling a new approach – Reference-Amplified Computed Tomography (RACT) – where machine learning becomes a crucial part of the digital restoration pipeline. You will leave this talk considering that RACT may indeed be the pathway for rescuing still-readable text from some of the most stubbornly damaged materials, like the enigmatic Herculaneum scrolls.

Matson Lecture

Co-sponsored by the Wellesley College Book Studies Program

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Details

Date:
November 14, 2019
Time:
5:00 pm EST
Event Categories:
,

Contact

Paul Properzio
Phone
(617)635-9957
Email
pjpropertius@comcast.net

Venue

Wellesley College, Clapp Library Lecture Room
106 Central Street
Wellesley, MA 02481 United States
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