This paper discusses the interim results of the AHRC RTISAD project. The project has developed and tested a range of techniques for gathering and processing reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) data. It has also assembled a detailed understanding of the breadth of RTI practice. Over the past decade the range of applications and algorithms in the broad domain of RTI has increased markedly, with current working addressing issues such as large resolution capture, 3D RTI, annotation, enhancement amongst others. Capture of RTI datasets has begun to occur in all aspects of cultural heritage and elsewhere. This has in turn prompted the development of policies and methods for managing and integrating the large quantities of data produced. The paper describes these techniques and issues in the context of a range of artefacts, including painted Roman and Neolithic surfaces, examples of ancient documents in a variety of forms, and archaeological datasets from Herculaneum, Çatalhöyük, Abydos and elsewhere. The paper also identifies ongoing software development work of value to the broad EVA community and proposes further enhancements.

Ancient Egyptian mummies were often covered with an outer casing, panels and masks made from cartonnage: a lightweight material made from linen, plaster, and recycled papyrus held together with adhesive. Egyptologists, papyrologists, and historians aim to recover and read extant text on the papyrus contained within cartonnage layers, but some methods, such as dissolving mummy casings, are destructive. The use of an advanced range of different imaging modalities was investigated to test the feasibility of non-destructive approaches applied to multi-layered papyrus found in ancient Egyptian mummy cartonnage. Eight different techniques were compared by imaging four synthetic phantoms designed to provide robust, well-understood, yet relevant sample standards using modern papyrus and replica inks. The techniques include optical (multispectral imaging with reflection and transillumination, and optical coherence tomography), X-ray (X-ray fluorescence imaging, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, X-ray micro computed tomography and phase contrast X-ray) and terahertz-based approaches. Optical imaging techniques were able to detect inks on all four phantoms, but were unable to significantly penetrate papyrus. X-ray-based techniques were sensitive to iron-based inks with excellent penetration but were not able to detect carbon-based inks. However, using terahertz imaging, it was possible to detect carbon-based inks with good penetration but with less sensitivity to ironbased inks. The phantoms allowed reliable and repeatable tests to be made at multiple sites on three continents. The tests demonstrated that each imaging modality needs to be optimised for this particular application: it is, in general, not sufficient to repurpose an existing device without modification. Furthermore, it is likely that no single imaging technique will to be able to robustly detect and enable the reading of text within ancient Egyptian mummy cartonnage. However, by carefully selecting, optimising and combining techniques, text contained within these fragile and rare artefacts may eventually be open to non-destructive imaging, identification, and interpretation.

Scope and ImpetusThis book grapples with the issue of writing and related graphical modes as forms of material culture. The diverse case studies are unified and underpinned by the notion that writing is fundamentally material -that it is preceded by and constituted through the material practices of human practitioners. From this vantage point, understandings of things that are written must therefore go beyond study of textual meanings and take account of the material worlds in which writing is inextricably embedded. In aligning along this common theme, analytical and interpretive priority is given, not to the linguistic and semantic meanings of graphical marks, but to their physicality and the ways in which this relates to creators and users. Covering a temporal span of some 5000 years, from c.3200 bce to the present day, and ranging in spatial context from the Americas to the Near East, the papers bring a variety of perspectives which contribute to both specific and broader questions of writing, its meaning and significance. As such, these case studies also contribute to an emerging discourse (below) on 'writing' and 'materiality' . They also contribute to the development of contextualising paradigms equipped to cope with the complexities of graphical cultures in relation to the people who created and attributed meaning to them through a diverse array of individual and wider social practices.While an increasing emphasis on materiality has characterised many fields of archaeological research over the last 20 years, studies of writing have lagged behind in this respect. The main reason is a long established and difficult-to-shift disciplinary division between archaeology and philology, in which the philologists -often brought in by archaeologists as technical experts whose interpretations are hard to challenge -have had the upper hand. This has led to an emphasis on the content of inscriptions and other writing, concentrating on languages, scripts and the semantic meanings of texts. These studies not only neglect materiality, which is our focus here, but they also tend to neglect context (both the specific archaeological context of the artefact, and the broader cultural and historical context into which written surfaces fit). Studies of content, context and materiality are all necessary for a holistic study of writing and many of the papers in this volume, while concentrating on material aspects of writing, do also deal with the meaning of the texts being studied and the contexts of their production and use. Our concern with the question of writing artefactuality was prompted by methodological problems arising out of our own research on ancient writing (e.g. Piquette 2007;forthcoming;Whitehouse 2008;2012). Our interest in exploring writing materialities cross-culturally is also inspired by the work of several scholars who also challenge the traditional disciplinary division between archaeology and philology (e.g. Moreland 2001;2006; cf. Bottéro 1992;. "Textaided archaeology" (Hawkes 1954; see also Little 1992) an...

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