At the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, the highlight of its Egyptian galleries is an elaborate and complete funerary assemblage from the tomb of a 2,300-year-old noblewoman named Meret-it-es. The initial room layout of the Egyptian galleries revealed the space would be optimized if the coffin was displayed in an upright position, as opposed to a horizontal position. The 2,300-year-old coffin is made out of wood and has several layers of paint on its surface. The wood shrinks and expands as it ages, and is also affected by its environment. Experts wondered whether the artifact would be adversely affected if it had a vertical posture.

Kathleen Garland, senior conservator at the museum, turned to Ryan Woodward and Epic Scan, a Portland, Oregon, company specializing in spatial measurement, advanced 3-D laser scanning, and mapping. First, the scanning process would reveal any movements in the coffins’ various components.  And second, the museum wanted to record the entire surface of the coffin to serve as a baseline archive of its condition in case of damage in the future. As the coffin would settle into place during the coming years, a second scan could be performed, analyzed, and compared with the original coordinate data for structural variations.

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