Virtual Unfolding and Visualization of Folded Papyrus Packages

Elephantine is a small island on the river Nil that has a unique multi-cultural, multireligious, multi-ethnic, and multi-lingual history . A large collection of papyri covers this history from 3000 B.C. until 1000 A.D. Studying these documents is essential to get insights into different aspects of evolution such as religion, language, sociology, and medicine as well as their relations to each other on such a small place. However, many of the papyri are rolled or folded. Manually opening these fragile documents without damaging them severely is often not possible. In this project, the virtual unrolling and unfolding is investigated based on tomographic reconstructions of the papyri.