Inside Cultural Heritage

X-rays allow for the non-destructive imaging of valuable and delicate cultural heritage artefacts. In the lab, this includes imaging very large and small objects from the millimeter down to the micron and even nanometer scale. This can be in 3D and 4D to give incredible insights into structure and form, including hidden internal features as well as how changes take place over time. 

Work at NXCT used high-resolution computed tomography to image, in 3D, the internal features of an Egyptian artefact of a mummified rodent which has a ‘backpack’ packed for the afterlife. An extremely delicate object which we would not be able to investigate otherwise without destroying it.