An Egyptian bennu-bird captured in 3D

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An Egyptian limestone figure-mould of a bennu-bird (a heron or a phoenix) from 664-332 BC (Dynasty 26-30)

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Amongst the many items on display in the new Ancient Worlds gallery at World Museum are some fragile Egyptian figure-moulds. Figure-moulds were used for making shapes, in this case, of the Egyptian bennu-bird (a heron or phoenix). The carved limestone tablets were made and used in about 664-332 BC. Before the figure-moulds were installed in the gallery in November 2008, Conservation Technologies used a Konica Minolta Range 7 close-range 3D laser scanning system to digitally record the surfaces of the moulds to sub-millimetre accuracy and create highly accurate 3D computer models of the pieces. The data from one of the computer models was inverted using specialist software and a plaster model of the bird created using a 3D printer.

Have a look at images of how the mould and model were recreated in the gallery above.

Acknowledgements

• Konica Minolta UK Ltd