An epigrapher at Chronicle Heritage has helped pioneer the 3D epigraphic processing of ancient stelae found in Egypt. Amy Wilson, Associate Archaeologist, has now epigraphically processed nine Egyptian stelae through the Wadi el-Hudi Expedition, with more to come.
A stela is an upright stone slab or column typically bearing a commemorative inscription or image.
The 3D modeling of the stelae is a significant technological advance in the field of epigraphy because it provides a more accurate representation of the stelae as compared to a traditional 2D sketch.
“It’s something quite new that I don’t think anyone else is really doing,” said Wilson. “The drawing is on the 3D model. This is important because with traditional epigraphy, you have a piece of paper that you’re copying the inscription on, and the paper is flat. Whereas the actual rock inscription is uneven. So, these copies are more accurate in terms of the overlay on the actual object.”
Processing Each Stela
- The stela is photographed for three different processes: standard photography, photogrammetry, and Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI)
- The photographs are used to generate a scaled 3D model of the stela, and its fragments are digitally reassembled.
- The epigraphers make digital drawings of the inscription directly overlaying the 3D model.
- As the epigraphic drawings are drafted, the epigrapher simultaneously translates the stela.
“The objective of this work is two-fold,” said Wilson. “We want to create 3D records of the stelae for future research, and we want to translate the stelae.”
The First Stela
The first stela to undergo the 3D epigraphic process was the stela of the viceroy Usersatet (WH 255).
An animated 3D reconstruction of WH255 is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwp5y1uimPo.
Usersatet was an Ancient Egyptian official with the titles king’s son and overseer of the southern foreign lands (i.e. Nubia). He was in office under king Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV. As viceroy, he was the main official in charge of Nubia.
Finding Usersatet’s Stela
Since 2014 the Wadi el-Hudi Expedition has been surveying and excavating archaeological sites in the amethyst mining region of the Eastern Desert of Egypt. The region was first occupied in Paleolithic times (approximately 200,000 years ago) and is rich in archaeological heritage. The ancient Egyptians established multiple important mines in Wadi el-Hudi in order to acquire amethyst for making jewelry during the Middle Kingdom and in the Greco-Roman Period. These large-scale mining ventures required up to 1,500 laborers and administrators that lived and worked in substantial walled settlements adjacent to the mines.
Wilson joined the Wadi el-Hudi Expedition when she was in grad school at The American University in Cairo. Since then, she has been trekking into the desert southeast of Aswan regularly in search of inscriptions.
“It started with me going out into the desert and finding rock inscriptions and recording their location and photographing them, and then later, working on epigraphic drawings and translations of the inscriptions,” said Wilson. “But more recently, for smaller portable objects like the stelae, we have been able to recover them for further study. And then we’ve done photogrammetry and 3D models of them.”
Wilson was not surprised when the expedition found the fragments of a stela, but when she learned it belonged to Usersatet, she was astonished.
“We were shocked by this finding because Usersatet lived in the New Kingdom about three hundred years after our site area had been abandoned. So, we were thinking, how did this get here and why? And it kind of started a whole detective project for me in terms of figuring out how all of that happened,” said Wilson. “And in addition to him making and leaving the stela there, someone had come back after he had died and chiseled his name and image off of it.”
More information about Usersatet’s stela can be found here: https://www.chronicleheritage.com/2024/04/29/amy-wilson-presents-new-research-on-egyptian-stela/.
More Stelae Success
Since finding Usersatet’s stela, 10 more stelae have been found and undergone the digital epigraphic process, eight of which were presented by Wilson at the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California.
The stelae have helped paint a clearer picture of the amethyst mining expeditions of the Middle Kingdom. The first Egyptian king to send expeditions to Wadi el-Hudi was Nebtawyre Mentuhotep IV, the last king of the 11th Dynasty, who is mentioned in a number of rock inscriptions. However, it wasn’t until the reign of Senwosret I of the 12th Dynasty that free-standing stelae first appeared in Wadi el-Hudi.
“They are primary sources of information about Middle Egyptian mining expeditions, in terms of learning more about the people undertaking these expeditions,” said Wilson. “They also serve as notices of which king is ordering the expedition and in what year. And also, to a certain extent, the ethnic makeup of the people participating in these expeditions.”
Not all of the stelae found so far are inscribed by those with typical Egyptian names.
“We have found people whose names might have been transcribed from a Semitic language into Egyptian, which is quite interesting. So maybe people coming from desert areas to the Northeast outside of Egypt,” said Wilson. “And we also have found references to Nubians as a collective people. So, people from south of Aswan, extending further south into Sudan. It’s an interesting makeup of people going on these expeditions in the desert.”
Why Inscribe a Stela?
“Think of it as a kind of commemorative event,” said Wilson. “If you are a delegate coming out to these mines in the desert in an official capacity, you would want to make a stela dedicated to your role in that expedition at that time.”
Often, the stelae include much more than just a name.
“Sometimes, but not always, they have a date,” said Wilson. “And then sometimes, they’ll give us more information about what they were doing. Sometimes, they specify they came to get amethyst. Or they’re leaving offerings for the goddess Hathor, who incidentally is associated with the amethyst. Often, the stelae mention their job titles, which is very useful. For example, we found an overseer of 200 stone workers on one of them. So, we knew that these were pretty sizable expeditions coming out into the desert with hundreds of people.”
The digital epigraphic study of stelae is ongoing as new discoveries continue to be made. Yet one thing is for certain: the results of this work will have a significant impact on cultural heritage documentation.
“The desert is kind of the gift that keeps on giving,” said Wilson. “We just keep on finding more and more rock inscriptions and stelae.”
More information about Wilson’s work with the expedition can be found on the American Research Center in Egypt’s website here: https://arce.org/project/administration-in-3d-deciphering-stelae-from-wadi-el-hudi-and-dihmit-south/.