3D scanning and shape analysis help archaeologists connect objects across space and time to recover their lost histories

Today the world of Egyptology faces a silent crisis – not of pillage, although that plays a role, but of disconnection. Walk into any major museum, from Copenhagen to California, and you’ll see display cases filled with what might be called orphan objects: remarkable objects, often acquired in the 19th and early 20th centuries, that have been completely stripped of their history. You can see what they are – a painted mummy foot case, a golden mask – but we have no idea where they came from. They are beautiful, but historically they are silent.