25 June 2026

Photo: Davidson MacLaren

Members of the ENCI team in Ankara during the measurement campaign in autumn 2024. From left to right: Samaneh Ehteram (UWA/DESY), Christian Schroer (UWA/DESY), Andreas Schropp (DESY), Katrin Zerbe (DESY), Andreas Beckert, and Cécile Michel (UWA).

The mobile CT scanner ENCI makes non-destructive insights into sealed cuneiform tablets from antiquity possible. A few weeks after the first research article about the device, jointly developed at CSMC and DESY, was published, it has now been featured in ‘The New York Times’.

ENCI, the first mobile computed tomograph specially designed for cultural heritage objects, opens a view onto texts that have not been read by any human since antiquity. Written on clay tablets, they are still enclosed in their original clay envelopes today — opening them would be ethically entirely unacceptable. Thanks to ENCI, it is now possible for the first time to look inside the tablets using X-rays without causing any damage. The method has already been used in several museums in France, Turkey, and Germany, yielding remarkable insights. This spring, the first scholarly article on the topic appeared in npj heritage science, which has now also brought the joint project run by CSMC and DESY onto the pages of the New York Times. The newspaper reports on it in an article published this week, which can be read here (paywall).

For CSMC, this is already its second appearance this year in the world’s most widely subscribed newspaper. In May, numerous international media outlets, including the NYT, reported on the sensational discovery of a fragment of the Iliad at the archaeological site of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. It had been discovered on a mummy from the 1st or 2nd century by a team that including CSMC alumna Leah Mascia. It was the first time that such a papyrus fragment could be identified in an Egyptian funerary context from this period.

A selection of recent articles, television reports and radio features about research at CSMC can be found here.