October 5, 2001

New Imaging Technique Makes Collections of Ancient Artifacts Legible

Thanks to an innovation in imaging technology, inscribed stones and ancient wood- and lead-tablet documents in the University of Oxford's Ashmolean Museum and the British Museum are being rescued from near-unreadability and made available for instant worldwide access.

Oxford researchers are using the Web to post three-dimensional images of 150 inscribed stones from ancient Greece; Roman-era wooden writing tablets from Vindolanda, near Hadrian's Wall, in northern England; and