by Editor on August 2, 2010
The artefacts were taken to a laboratory to be recorded
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A museum is displaying holographic images of artefacts made using a new imaging technique pioneered in Wales.
The holograms and 3D computer images will be shown at the Llangollen Museum in Denbighshire.
The imaging technique was developed by Professor Hans Bjelkhagan of Glyndwr University in Wrexham.
The museum claims the technique allows smaller venues to exhibit key works without having to borrow them from national museums.
An entry on the museum’s website says: “Although the national museums have programmes in place to lend out artefacts, it often is not possible for smaller museums to borrow items that they may wish to – there may not be the space or there may be security and storage issues.
“This exhibition aims to use modern technology to enable people to view three-dimensional ‘images’ of the artefacts in various different forms.”
The museum claims the holograms “convince the viewer that the object is actually there behind the glass”.
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 In the museum, they have put an axe and the hologram next to it and people can’t tell which is the real image 
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Prof Bjelkhagan has been working on the new technique for 15 years and said Wales was the first country in the world to use the technology.
He explained: “It’s an imaging technology that is absolutely perfect. No computer can reproduce images like this.
“We freeze the light as it comes from the object, so we actually capture the light coming from the object which can then regenerate the object as if it was still there.
“In the museum, they have put an axe and the hologram next to it and people can’t tell which is the real image.”
The technique uses three lasers which are combined into one white light
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The technique uses three lasers, in red, blue and green, which are then combined into one white light.
Prof Bjelkhagan said: “You have to put a glass plate in front of the object, and the light from the object goes back into the glass and is recorded. It’s like ‘old-fashioned’ film photography.
“All the artefacts were brought to the labs at Optic to be recorded.
“One of the most unique artefacts is a 14,000-year-old necklace engraved with a horse which is so valuable no-one can have it here in Wales.
“It’s kept in the British Museum. For the first time people in Wales will be able to see it. It was found in Llandudno, in the Great Orme mountain, where they also want to show the exhibition.”
The Bringing the Artefacts Back to the People exhibition is the result of a partnership between museums across north Wales, and Optic Technium in St Asaph, Denbighshire.
The exhibition is being taken on tour over the next two years once it leaves Llangollen.
The project was funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, an independent grant-making organisation.
BBC — http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/north_east/8663167.stm
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Will 3-D digital technology replace the genuine objects? What do you think, as it pertains to the Rosetta Stone?
by Editor on April 10, 2010
The Capitulation of 30 August 1801 was signed by representative of the Britain: Admiral Kieth, J. Hely Hutchenson, Lieutenant General, Commander-in-chief. Representative of France ABBDOULLAHY, JACQUES, FRANCOIS MENOU, General in chief of the French Army. Representative of the Sublime High Port: Hussein, Capitan Pasha.(Clarke, Hewson. The history of the war: from the commencement of the French revolution to the present time , Volume 1,1816:530) With no representative of the Egyptians who began at that epoch to form their own leadership which were of religious nature.
The armistice and peace treaty which followed the defeat of Napoleon and the invasion of France did not make particular provision regarding confiscated art treasures or under treaty, or even property taken prior to Napoleon’s activities; after the Congress of Vienna in 1815 many objects under all these headings were simply returned. The Prussians without waiting the signature of any treaty or the consent of their allies, had already packed their own works of art into wagons and sent them off to Berlin. The King of the Netherlands recovered the Flemish masterpieces which Napoleon had housed in the Louvre . The Venus of the Medici went back to Florence; the horses of St Marks were, taken down from the arch of the Carrousel and restored to Venice; and the Pope sent Canova on a special mission to Paris to catalogue and recover the treasures which had once been his.
Utilizing Rosetta Stone in the wall construction was not signal of Egyptian disdain for these treasures but an ancient Egyptian custom survived among the modern dwellers, they used to bury figures of gods under their houses to prevent evil spirits and devils entering them from the earth, in Fustat, or “Old Cairo” many householders had buried under their thresholds bronze figures of gods, stone Ushabtiu figures, and even portrait statues, for the same purpose as their ancestors. In one quarter the first stone a man stepped on after passing through his street door was always an ancient Egyptian sepulchral Stela, and the greater number of those were laid with the inscribed side uppermost.
Both the stones and the inscriptions were supposed to be “lucky” and the hieroglyphic characters were believed by many to have magic in them. (Budge, E. A. Wallis. By Nile and Tigris, Vol. I, London (1920):85-87) This did happen in all parts of Egypt. As result of this habit, one of the reused Stela was point of quarrel between France and Britain in 1815, the Stela was fixed as the slab of Emir Akhor Mosque –ruined mosque in Cairo-, Mohammed Ali, Egypt’s ruler, justified his primary refuse with his fear of the people’s rage, if he extracted the slab and dedicated it to Britain or France.
The Reuse of Egyptian monuments’ blocks was practiced on the hands of the Pharaohs themselves it was not a new phenomenon, as many much stone blocks from Giza Pyramids were reused by King Amnemhat I of the Twelfth Dynasty in building his own pyramid at Lisht.
Buildings of both Amenemhat I and Senwosert I were found re-used in later Ptolemaic temples. In Italy, similar partial dismantling for the Coliseum was acted to build the Farness Palace.
Rosetta Stone was lent by the British Museum to the Louvre in 1972 so how its provenance land can not get similar honor?
– submitted by Hend Mohammed
