This international research project is already casting light on a lost bronze age middle eastern society where enslaved workers lived on rations close to the starvation level. “I think we are finally on the point of making a breakthrough,” says Jacob Dahl, fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford and director of the Ancient World Research Cluster. Dr Dahl’s secret weapon is being able to see this writing more clearly than ever before. In a room high up in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, above the Egyptian mummies and fragments of early civilisations, a big black dome is clicking away and flashing out light. This device, part sci-fi, part-DIY, is providing the most detailed and high quality images ever taken of these elusive symbols cut into clay tablets. This is Indiana Jones with software.
more from Sean Coughlan at the BBC here.