I have always been someone who is interested in different languages. My passion sparked when me and my family moved to the United States from Venezuela, and I needed to learn English fast to help my family navigate this country, since they had less time to learn English than I did. Although I didn’t have an English tutor to formally teach me English, I taught myself most of my English through reading, which made me develop a love for languages in written form. Now, at Williams, I am a prospective Chinese Language major because I fell in love with the language after taking CHIN 101! So when I was given the opportunity to work on a project that was so related to my interest in languages, I jumped on it immediately.

Cuneiform is regarded as the earliest known writing system. These words are written into clay and then baked into a sturdy, but fragile tablet. I was also really surprised to learn that cuneiform was used to write several languages. I had the pleasure to work with When we got to work, I was filled with excitement, but also some anxiety about the unknowns. Anne Peale, a librarian that works closely with the college’s special collections. She taught me that this particular cuneiform tablet was (insert interview details here). She plans to use the 3D printed tablet for educational purposes, because the characters in the tablet are very legible and hold information about a person’s taxes. Not only would 3D printing the cuneiform tablet allow several iterations of it to be used outside of the special collections library, it also allows us to make the tablet bigger, which makes the writing a lot easier to read. I was really excited about all of this, and it honestly made me want to learn how to read this type of cuneiform!

When we got to work, I was honestly really nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. This project required a way to record the tablet’s intricate wedges and patterns in a way that makes the writing completely legible, so we decided to use the unfamiliar Creality scanner to 3D scan the cuneiform, digitizing it into a file form. In my opinion, the Creality software was really intuitive. It was fairly easy to connect it to the computer, and to figure out how to correctly configure the scan. The most challenging part of this project was figuring out how to scan the tablet in a way that fully recorded the writing. We had some challenges with this, as the most detailed scanning mode included stickers that told the scanner its location, and since we couldn’t place the stickers on the cuneiform, we had to place them in its perimeter, something that became really hard to deal with when we began to turn the scanner sideways to get the sides of the tablet, since it could no longer recognize the stickers due to the angle change. Another challenge we had was that the tablet was really hard to place in a balanced way that didn’t topple over, so we ended up putting a small weighted cushion to hold it up.

Since we couldn’t place the tablet in a way that was possible for us to capture all four sides in one scan, we had to do a scan for each of all four sides. Each side of the tablet took about twenty minutes to complete, and the Creality scanner is really heavy! Anne and I had to take turns scanning, and we were both so sore! Creality records 3D items by scanning each and every point on the item, and this tablet was so intricate that it had over a million points for each side! The more we scanned, the fewer points that were recorded, so we had to go around the item a lot slower and with a lot more complex angles to make sure we recorded every character.

After two hours, all sides were scanned. Now, the only thing that was left was to find a way to merge the different scans into the composite model of the tablet. Although the Creality software comes with a scan merging option, this did not work on our scans, so blender was used to merge it.

After a month, the 3D scanned cuneiform was ready! It was a lot bigger than the tablet, and a lot less fragile, and best of all, we now had a file that could be used for printing as many of these tablets as we want! I was really excited because it was also my first time getting to see a 3D scanned object up close, as well as hold it.

One side of the tablet is clearer than the other, so we are going to reprint the file as a resin print, because the material may help to raise the clarity of the 3D print. 

Working on this project was a true journey of growth for me. The complexity of 3D scanning and the delicate nature of the cuneiform tablet made every step a learning experience. There were moments when I felt challenged, uncertain about the technical aspects or the best way to handle the fragile tablet. But with each hurdle, I gained more confidence, honed my problem-solving skills, and improved my ability to think creatively under pressure. I have always been really interested in languages, and this project sparked an interest in the digital humanities and language preservation.The potential of 3D scanning in the field of digital humanities is endless. From preserving endangered artifacts to making them accessible to scholars and students around the globe, this technology ensures that history is no longer bound by geography or fragility. I couldn’t help but think, what other treasures could we preserve this way?