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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
[email protected]
The Way It Was: Revelations from Nineteenth Century Explorations to Maya Ruins
Barbara Fash, Peabody Museum, Harvard University
Archaeological photographs are static and can appear uninteresting, but today’s digitization projects of images from nineteenth excavations bring them back to life. New technologies allow us to peer into their depths revealing hidden dimensions of the work and people captured when the shutter was released. Landscapes and ancient architecture have changed so dramatically in the intervening centuries that the images transport us back to the moment of discovery. This is proving to be an invaluable tool for the Copan Hieroglyphic Stairway project, which is attempting to piece together an enormous, collapsed and jumbled eighth century Maya inscription. Three-dimensional models and printing technologies are another way the archival images are being put to use. The process is stirring a modern day community to reflect on their past.