Here's an application for 3-D printing that hadn't occurred to me, but is, in retrospect, fantastic - Ancient Studies researchers at Cornell are developing a technique to use 3-D printing to make exact replicas of cuneiform tablets.
Such an effort is under way at Cornell in the lab of Hod Lipson, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, who specializes in the burgeoning field of 3-D scanning and printing of everyday objects.
Natasha Gangjee '12, a student in Lipson's lab, worked with six cuneiform tablets to try and replicate them exactly using optical scanning and layer-by-layer printing technology. A former student of Lipson's, Evan Malone, made an initial prototype.
"If we can create very accurate reproductions, this would be a great help to us," said David I. Owen, the Bernard and Jane Schapiro Professor of Ancient Near Eastern and Judaic Studies.
What's really fascinating about this is that once they get the techniques down, it wouldn't be limited to just 3-D printed cuneiform tablets. Once you get the right materials, all sorts of archaelogical artifacts could be reproduced this way, which would not only benefit archaeolgists, who could study the replicas in more detail. I imagine that the technique could also be brought to bear on fossils, as well, since I'll bet there are similar technical problems reproducing small fossils. That could speed up some work in paleontolgy, as well.
I'd also say there'd be a pretty burgeoning consumer market, too. I, for one, would love to have an exact replica of, say, the tablets comprising the Epic of Gilgamesh. We're only scratching the surface of what 3-D printing is capable of right now. It's a very exciting technology.
By the way, if you want to 3-D print your own cuneiform tablet, the files are here.
