Immeasurable Details: Micrometric Analysis of Reed Stylus Fiber Impressions on Cuneiform Tablets

In recent years, the exploration of digital methodologies within Assyriological research has significantly intensified. The advent of 3D modeling of cuneiform tablets offers numerous advantages, including the possibility to simulate various lighting conditions, thereby enhancing the visibility of morphological details. Furthermore, 3D digital copies facilitate the geometric examination of cuneiform signs, aiding in the recognition of scribal handwriting and joins. However, the fibrous impressions left by the reed stylus on the left-hand side of the wedges have been overlooked in previous studies. Despite their dimensions spanning merely a few microns, these fiber impressions have the potential to be as unique to each stylus as fingerprints are to human. This research employs the Gocator 3504, a high-reso-lution structured-light scanner by LMI Technologies, with a nominal resolution of 6.7 μm in XY and 0.2 μm in Z, to measure and visualize the fibrous impressions on a group of tablets from Ghent University. The examination and representation of these fibrous impressions offer a potentially new and complementary diagnostic technique for verifying joins, thereby determining whether fragments of cuneiform tablets exhibit identical fibrous patterns on their wedges. Such similarity would suggest that the fragments were impressed by the same stylus and might belong to the same tablet.