Researchers use 3-D models of bones, artifacts for remote research

A new collaborative effort at Stanford University Libraries to capture 3-D models of the university’s artifacts, such as bones and art, helps scholars and students with analyzing and studying objects remotely.

Stanford University Libraries has been piloting 3-D scanning technology to make materials including animal bones, archaeological artifacts and other objects more readily accessible to scholars on campus and across the world.

The latest in 3-D scanning drives this collaboration between the Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford Libraries, and Stanford University Archaeology Collections. The article and video focuses on animal bones, but in the video demo you will see one of our star stone tools from a current scanning project: a flint core from which multiple long blades have been expertly struck (20362). The piece was collected at Wadi el-Sheikh, Egypt, by Heywood Walter Seton-Karr, a British military officer and amateur archaeologist. He donated the piece to Stanford around 1905.