NARRATION

Clay tablets preserve the secrets of the world's first civilisation - the Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia. Working with wet clay, they developed a system of writing known as cuneiform.

Dr Jaye McKenzie-Clarke

They're evidence of the very first written communication between humans. And, as such, they are very special indeed.

Dr Luis Siddall

Cuneiform documents cover largely the first half of human history as it's been recorded. Everything from political affairs, right down to economic practices, from 3400BC right up to the time of Christ.

Dr Graham Phillips

It seems, 4,000 years ago, people were just as concerned about their privacy as we are today. When they had important clay documents they wanted to seal, they put them inside clay envelopes. Now, that's caused a major problem for archaeologists today.

Dr Jaye McKenzie-Clarke

It's really important information, and if that information is sealed within an envelope, the only way we can read what's inside that envelope is to break the envelope and destroy it.

Dr Graham Phillips

So this is the traditional way of looking into one of these? Just hacksawing in. And then you just sort of chisel it open.

Dr Jaye McKenzie-Clarke

Yeah.

Dr Graham Phillips

Good thing this is not the real thing.

Dr Jaye McKenzie-Clarke

Just as well.

Dr Graham Phillips

And there you have the tablet inside.

Dr Jaye McKenzie-Clarke

Yes.

Dr Graham Phillips

But, gee, it's very destructive. I mean, that's an artefact in itself, the outer shell.

Dr Jaye McKenzie-Clarke

It is. So you only then have half an artefact.

NARRATION

While archaeologists searched for a better solution, many ancient texts remained unopened and unread, until a chance meeting.

Professor John Magnussen

I went wandering down on campus, and found the Museum of Ancient Cultures, and ran into Jaye McKenzie-Clarke there. She showed me around.

Dr Jaye McKenzie-Clarke

And I think we spent about two hours talking about my research, and he talked about his work.

Professor John Magnussen

Thank you very much.

Dr Jaye McKenzie-Clarke

Nice to see you.

Professor John Magnussen

OK. See you again.

Dr Jaye McKenzie-Clarke

Hope to see you again. Bye-bye.

Professor John Magnussen

Bye.

Dr Jaye McKenzie-Clarke

He walked out the door, and as a throwaway line, he said...

Professor John Magnussen

I think I might have something that would help you look at some of these artefacts. And that's where it all started.

NARRATION

As head of radiology at Macquarie Medical Imaging, Professor John Magnussen has access to a powerful tool which he thinks could reveal the hidden secrets.

Dr Graham Phillips

Now, this is quite a remarkable scanner, a baby CT scanner. It's the only one of its kind in the southern hemisphere. Now, it's not only smaller than the standard scanner, it's also far more accurate.

NARRATION

The plan was to use the machine to virtually open the envelopes.

Professor John Magnussen

We didn't know if it was going to work. We thought, well, since it isn't destructive, there's not much downside to giving it a go.

NARRATION

It was an exciting prospect, and, if the pair were successful, the technique could revolutionise archaeological science.

Dr Jaye McKenzie-Clarke

Over the world, there are many thousands of cuneiform tablets. If we can use this technique to unwrap those tablets digitally, it opens up a huge amount of research information.

Professor John Magnussen

So, we should start to see something coming up shortly.

Dr Graham Phillips

OK, that's done.

Professor John Magnussen

OK...

Dr Graham Phillips

Oh, right. Oh, yeah. Look at that.

Professor John Magnussen

There's the part that you can see from the outside...

Dr Graham Phillips

Yeah.

Professor John Magnussen

..and there's the partially broken wrapped portion on the surface.

NARRATION

They only have to scan an item once and they have the data forever.

Professor John Magnussen

And that's the ancient cuneiform script on the outside of that tablet.

NARRATION

But it's the 3-D model constructed from this data that is truly remarkable.

Dr Graham Phillips

Gee, it's incredible. Yeah, you can... What's the resolution of that?

Professor John Magnussen

It's about 75 microns...

Dr Graham Phillips

Yeah.

Professor John Magnussen

..or 75 millionths of a metre. You can pick out the exquisite surface detail, which is what you need to be able to try and recreate it and read what's going on. And what I'm going to do is virtually dissect or remove that outside layer. And now I can turn it around, and have a look at the writing that's been hiding underneath.

Dr Graham Phillips

So, no-one's seen that writing for four or five thousand years.

Professor John Magnussen

Yeah. The only person that's seen it previously is the one who wrote it. It's quite impressive.

Dr Graham Phillips

Yeah, it is.

NARRATION

And they haven't stopped here. This pioneering technique paved the way for another innovation - 3-D printing of accurate replicas.

Professor John Magnussen

Being able to print something and put it in people's hands lets them actually connect to objects that are thousands of years old.

Dr Jaye McKenzie-Clarke

You can also exchange 3-D objects online. So, if we wanted to send a cuneiform tablet to a colleague in London, for instance, we could send them the data, and they could send it to be 3-D laser printed.

Dr Graham Phillips

This is a clone of one of those clay tablets from the 3-D printer. It's quite remarkable. You can feel all the detail there. I'm holding in my hand here a document written more than 4,000 years ago. And in some ways, the replicas are better than the real thing. For example, I could tell the printer to blow everything up to one-and-a-half times scale, and get that, where everything is big enough to actually read the writing.

NARRATION

For ancient language experts, like Dr Luis Siddall this could open up a new understanding.

Dr Luis Siddall

Translation's always a difficult process, and particularly when you're dealing with something that was written 4,000 years ago. My job is made considerably easier when you can enlarge very small tablets, and, by enlarging it, you can actually clarify some of the signs that are there.

NARRATION

So what was this 4,000-year-old secret?

Dr Luis Siddall

This tablet is an economic text which is about the distribution of barley to particular individuals. We get a series of names. We may be able, in time, to link to other tablets.

NARRATION

Thus providing a wonderful glimpse into the daily life of the ancient world.

Dr Jaye McKenzie-Clarke

It IS like looking at a time capsule. It gives you so much insight into that society, and also... what life was like in those times.