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Hieroglyphic Stairway at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

1998 - Boston, USA

In the Hieroglyphic Stairway 3D Scanning Project, the BIRIS system was used in October 1998 by Innovision Géomatique (currently MCG3D), to digitize the Mayan hieroglyphic stairway section at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge, USA.

The project had two objectives. First, a portable BIRIS 3D Laser Camera, developed by NRC, was mounted on a linear translation stage to record the Stairway at the Museum. Subsequently, the data was used to render a high-resolution 3D digital model. In the second stage, Innovision evaluated various methods of producing replicas of the Stairway using the 3D digital data. This included the fabrication of a sample glyph section, using the reproduction technique found to produce the best results.

Figure 1: The section of the hieroglyphic stairway, which also includes a statue of a seated warrior, is in the collection of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University in Cambridge. The Stairway measures approximately 3.4 m wide and is approximately 2.3 m at its highest point.
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Figure 2: For scanning the Stairway, the Biris camera was mounted on a 1.5 m linear translation stage and was driven by an electric motor.
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Figure 3: The complete 3D model of the Stairway
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Figure 4: Detail of the lower left step section
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