An emblematic bronze from Cyprus the Idalion project

Abstract

The Idalion Tablet, an antique bronze (480-470 BC) found around 1850 in the antique city of Idalion in Cyprus is the main purpose of the presented interdiciplinary work. The tablet is the property of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) since 1862, and is absent from collections of the Idalion Museum (Cyprus). Our final goal is to realise an accurate copy of the Idalion Tablet (scale 1, with no patina) as a donation to the Mayor of Dhali on behalf of the "Local History Society - Kypros". As the Tablet has an important cultural and historical value, we were not allowed to handle it directly neither to realise a mould by physical contact. Therefore, we used 3D digitization to create a virtual and accurate replica of the Tablet shape. By rapid prototyping a physical copy of the Tablet was obtained for casting with bronze. The simulated tablet, thanks to a very accurate 3D digitization, was obtained with the Virtuelium free software. With the elementary composition of the alloy, the complex index of refraction of the alloy was calculated and compared to spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements. A didactic movie is also in progress and will be translated first into greek and later into several languages. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.