Hittite tablet to be deciphered with 3D

Hurriyet Daily News, 29-09-2014

A tablet found on a rock during excavations in Hattusa, the capital of the Hittite civilization in the central Anatolian province of Çorum, will be deciphered with a 3D scanning system. Assistant Professor Andreas Schachner, the head of the excavations, said the team had started working to decipher the 3,500-year-old tablet. He said that what was written on the tablet had been an object of interest to the science world, and added the writing was nearly wiped off after being exposed to bad weather conditions for millennia. “The Hittites used two different writing systems,” Schachner explained. “The first is the cuneiform script on kiln tablets and the other is hieroglyphs, which is mostly seen on rocks.”

Schachner said the team is collaborating with Hittitologist Professor Marazzi from the University of Naples to scan the tablet and transfer it to digital 3D environment. The professor said the result of the work would be announced at a symposium next year. ”Some certain points on the rock are determined. They will be scanned and the photos will be merged,” he explained of the process. ”After this 10-day work, the laboratory work will start. We will get the results a few months later.”

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