(Image: Birmingham City University)
(Image: Museum of London)
You won鈥檛 need to be a cat burglar to get your hands on the priceless gold and jewelled artefacts from the so-called Cheapside Hoard, going on display at the in October.
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Researchers from Birmingham City University in the UK have scanned items like this precious 17th-century watch in exquisite detail, and recreated them using a 3D printer. Visitors will be able to handle copies of the items, something that should be of particular benefit to visually impaired people.
The watch is part of a trove of Elizabethan and Jacobean jewellery found in a London cellar by builders in 1912. It is known as the , after the jeweller who made it around 1600.
The researchers are also planning to reconstruct replicas which will help them understand the watch鈥檚 surprisingly advanced features. It had both calendar and alarm functions and was decorated with an elegant scrolling foliage design alongside floral motifs and a sunburst pattern. The watch is so innovative, researchers are calling it 鈥渢he iPod of its day鈥�.
鈥淲e think of our own time as one of impressive technological advances, but we must look at the Elizabethan and Jacobean age as being just as advanced in some ways,鈥� said Ann-Marie Carey, who worked on the project. 鈥淲e fear some of these 400-year-old processes may now be lost to us.鈥�
To reveal details of the watch鈥檚 construction, the team removed the remaining enamel on the surface from their 3D model to show what the metal component looked like prior to being enamelled, says Keith Adcock, who also contributed to the work. 鈥淲e have effectively used new technology to capture a 鈥榤oment in time鈥� during the watch鈥檚 original making process.鈥�
In October, the Museum of London will be showcasing as much of the hoard as it can muster. The Ferlite watch is featured 36 seconds in to this .
