The technology is giving historians a new insight into everyday life in ancient Egypt.
The hieroglyphics found on the walls of the tombs of the Pharaohs show how the rich and powerful wanted to be portrayed. It was the propaganda of its time.
The new technique gives Egyptologists access to the real story of Ancient Egypt, according to Prof Adam Gibson of University College London, who led the project.
“Because the waste papyrus was used to make prestige objects, they have been preserved for 2,000 years,” he said. “And so these masks constitute one of the best libraries we have of waste papyrus that would otherwise have been thrown away so it includes information about these individual people about their everyday lives”
The scraps of papyrus are more than 2,000 years old. The writing on them is often obscured by the paste and plaster that holds the mummy cases together. But researchers can see what is underneath by scanning them with different kinds of light which makes the inks glow.
Though not explicitly stated in the article it appears it was Raman spectroscopy that was used to detect knowledge obscured through the centuries. Just four years earlier, in 2013, the same spectroscopy with vibrational Raman signals was applied to the Shroud of Turin. The finding indicated the authenticity of the Shroud from yet another perspective, supporting the same outcome yielded by radiocarbon dating, anatomical forensics and new image analysis developed by NASA.
Thus does the judicious use of technology continue to bridge the gap not only within knowledge itself but, more importantly, between knowledge and the spiritual realm.
Dr. G. Heath King