News: The Artifacts of Life

The Artifacts of Life, By Carl Marziali, USC News Science / Technology, June 23, 2009 11:16 AM.

USC’s first pilgrims to a temple of high-energy physics will be seeking answers to worldly questions about ancient commerce.

Archaeologist Lynn Swartz Dodd of USC College and her students are taking trade artifacts from Egypt to the Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source, home of the most powerful X-rays in the country...

The group hopes to return to Argonne this fall or next spring for a second round of studies, this time to analyze Assyrian and Persian artifacts found in Israel, Turkey, Iraq and Iran, which are on loan from the Oriental Institute of Chicago...

This is not the first time that USC has brought modern technology to bear on ancient problems. Dodd’s colleague Bruce Zuckerman leads a team that has been creating digital images of the ancient writings on the Persepolis Tablets at the Oriental Institute in Chicago.

The project has two goals: to preserve at least digital access to the Iranian government-owned tablets, which may be sold off as part of a lawsuit seeking to punish Iran for its ties to the terrorist group Hamas; and to reduce physical study of the tablets by scholars.

“Looking at a text is probably the most damaging thing you can do to it,” Zuckerman said.

Go to the chronicle of news on the Persepolis Fortification Archive.