{"id":7709,"date":"2022-03-29T11:27:38","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T16:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=7709"},"modified":"2022-03-29T11:27:38","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T16:27:38","slug":"exploring-egypt-uwl-professor-alums-creating-3d-database-of-ancient-statues","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/exploring-egypt-uwl-professor-alums-creating-3d-database-of-ancient-statues\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring Egypt: UWL professor, alums creating 3D database of ancient statues"},"content":{"rendered":"
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UWL Professor Dave Anderson and alums Nicolette Pegarsch (upper right) and Shannon Casey spent January 2022 scanning statues of the goddess Sekhmet at the Mut Temple in Luxor, Egypt. Pegarsch and Casey described it as the trip of a lifetime.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Imagine walking around an ancient Egyptian temple or holding a 4,000-year-old artifact in the palm of your hand.<\/p>\n

UWL\u2019s David Anderson<\/a>\u00a0is bringing people as close to that experience as possible through photogrammetry \u2014 the science of using photographs to produce 3D immersive models.<\/p>\n

Anderson and two of his former students spent January 2022 working on a new project at the Mut Temple in Luxor, Egypt,\u00a0photographing nearly 300 statues<\/a>\u00a0of the lioness-headed goddess Sekhmet. The photos will be stitched together into moveable, 3D models that can be viewed by anyone anywhere with a phone or computer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s estimated that there were over 500 of these statues in the temple originally, but some have been removed and taken to museums in Egypt and around the world,\u201d explains Anderson, a professor in the\u00a0Archaeology & Anthropology Department<\/a>. Anderson was invited by Betsy Bryan, director of the Johns Hopkins University and University of Liverpool Expedition to the Mut Temple Precinct, to come with students from UWL and conduct a detailed 3D photographic documentation of the temple buildings and statues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to create a 3D database of the Sekhmet statues currently in the temple,\u201d he says, \u201cas well as develop a scanning protocol that will allow museums to add their own statues so we can try get to a full database of the known statues from the temple.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson and his two understudies \u2014 Shannon Casey, \u201921, and Nicolette Pegarsch, \u201919 \u2014 spent several hours daily photographing the statues, taking hundreds of photos of each, from all different angles.<\/p>\n

They took more than 55,000 photos during their 12 days of work at the temple.<\/p>\n

In the late afternoons, they\u2019d visit other notable sites as tourists, including the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens, the Tombs of the Nobles and many others.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In addition to working at the Mut Temple, the group visited many notable landmarks as tourists, including the Great Pyramid of Giza.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Anderson \u2014 a leading Egyptologist and the president of the American Research Center in Egypt \u2014 admits he\u2019s grown a little jaded having visited the area so many times. He\u2019s scanned so many\u00a0sites and artifacts<\/a>\u00a0over the years that his trips to Egypt can begin to feel almost business-like.<\/p>\n

But seeing the sights with two newcomers, he says, was fresh and rewarding.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of their enthusiasm, it was like seeing Egypt for the first time,\u201d Anderson explains. \u201cSeeing how excited they\u2019d get, the questions they\u2019d ask, it was really like seeing Egypt through a fresh pair of eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was also so rewarding to see the students actively applying what they learned in my classes in the real world,\u201d he said. \u201cNot just with scanning the statues, but seeing them trying to translate hieroglyphic inscriptions in the museums, temples and tombs we visited.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a young person passionate about archeology, Casey says it was the trip of a lifetime.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really amazing, after taking a variety of different classes about archeology and Egypt, to see things I had learned about in class and to put my knowledge to the test,\u201d she notes. \u201cI never thought I\u2019d get to go to Egypt, and certainly not in the capacity to access some of the most amazing wonders of the world. This trip made me a more experienced traveler and archeologist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pegarsch agrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe experience I had in Egypt was absolutely incredible \u2014 something that I had dreamt about for 15 years,\u201d she says. \u201cEgypt is a very sensory country. Between the delicious foods, constant trills of car horns and the absolute beauty of the landscape in Luxor, I just fell in love.\u201d<\/p>\n

The knowledge they gained on the trip is already being put to good use. Casey is interning with the La Crosse County Historical Society, while Pegarsch is interning with the Winona County Historical Society.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy experience in Egypt and at the Winona County Historical Society is something a lot of universities and museums are looking to do,\u201d Pegarsch says. \u201cPreserve our past.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Link to original story: https:\/\/www.uwlax.edu\/news\/posts\/exploring-egypt\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine walking around an ancient Egyptian temple or holding a 4,000-year-old artifact in the palm of your hand. UWL\u2019s David Anderson\u00a0is bringing people as close to that experience as possible through photogrammetry \u2014 the science of using photographs to produce 3D immersive models. Anderson and two of his former students spent January 2022 working on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":7711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[104],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-7709","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-la-crosse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/7709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=7709"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=7709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}