The papyrus collection of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin contains several thousand papyri, including countless fragments of various sizes, some folded, some rolled, some wrapped. The writing is often hidden in the interior of the papyrus and is often inaccessible to methods that are only sensitive to areas close to the surface. The time-consuming physical unfolding process always carries the risk of damaging fragile objects. Alternatively, non-destructive, depth-sensitive methods provide access to the hidden texts and help to interpret them with respect to the time frame. The analysis of the materials used is also essential to decide which technique will be most effective and successful for virtual unfolding, and which ideas in ink making were used at what time over a period of 4000 years of Egyptian cultural history. This will be explored in a talk, as the folded time can be unfolded by looking at the ink in time.

About the Speaker