WoodScope
A New Approach to the Analysis of Ancient Wooden Objects
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Read our paper: Wood under the lens: Unveiling ancient Egyptian heritage
WoodScope, with its complementary DendroScope approach, is an interdisciplinary approach for the analysis and identification of ancient wooden objects developed by Egyptologists Monika Zöller-Engelhardt and Tina Beck-Hasselbach in collaboration with wood specialists Alan Crivellaro, Flavio Ruffinatto, and Alma Piermattei. Combining expertise from Egyptology and Wood Science, the framework addresses a gap in the study of ancient Egyptian material culture: the lack of systematic, context-sensitive investigation of wood and its socio-cultural and socio-economic significance. Despite significant progress in recent years, wood remains an underexplored souce of information in Egyptology.
WoodScope establishes a fully documented and integrative workflow for wood identification and analysis that is both non-invasive or minimally invasive and applicable even in restricted research environments such as museum contexts or excavation sites. Whenever possible, the approach avoids sampling entirely; where sampling is necessary, only targeted minute fragments are used. A key feature of WoodScope is a built-in decision process that deliberately omits invasive intervention if it is unlikely to improve identification accuracy. Beyond reliable wood identification, WoodScope enables further material-based investigations, including analyses of wood deterioration, breakage, and object biographies. The analysis also contributes to Wood Science through methodological innovations, including new multi-scale identification keys. Cost-efficient, rapid, and requiring only minimal equipment, WoodScope provides immediate preliminary results while remaining transferable to archaeological contexts beyond Egyptology.
From an Egyptological perspective, WoodScope foregrounds the materiality of wooden burial assemblages to explore the relations between material, objects, functions, and actors within a coherent Material Culture Studies framework. The approach moves beyond traditional category boundaries by enabling cross-category comparison. In dialogue with praxeological approaches, WoodScope conceptualises objects as dynamic agents situated between artistic techniques and historically embedded social practices. Overall, the approach will develop an operational analytical framework capable of capturing the specificities of pre-modern material phenomena in Ancient Egyptian wooden material culture.
WoodScope Cooperations
The Asyut Project, Freie Universität Berlin
Athribis-Projekt, University of Tübingen
Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin
Ägyptisches Museum Georg Steindorff, Leipzig
Museo Egizio, Turin
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
WoodScope Funding
2026 Berlin, Germany: Funds for the advancement of women’s equality of the Department of History and Cultural Studies, FU Berlin: Travel allowance for participation in conference at Cairo (FU Berlin, Tina Beck-Hasselbach)
2026 Leipzig, Germany: Gerda Henkel Foundation “The wooden burial assemblage of Herishefhotep. New Insights with an interdisciplinary approach in Egyptology and Wood Science” (JGU Mainz and FU Berlin: Monika Zöller-Engelhardt and Tina Beck-Hasselbach)
2025 Asyut, Egypt: International Funds by Division IV: International Affairs of FU Berlin (FU Berlin, Tina Beck-Hasselbach)
2025 Asyut, Egypt: Fritz Thyssen Foundation “WoodScope – Feldversuch Assiut” (JGU Mainz, Monika Zöller-Engelhardt)
2025 Berlin, Germany: Dahlem Junior Host Program “Holzanatomie anhand der Grabungsfunde des Asyut Project” (FU Berlin, Tina Beck-Hasselbach)
2024 Berlin, Germany: Dahlem Junior Host Program “Holzanatomische Untersuchungen ägyptischer Objekte des 3. Jahrtausends v. Chr.” (FU Berlin, Tina Beck-Hasselbach)
2024 Berlin, Germany: Funds for the advancement of women’s equality of the Department of History and Cultural Studies, FU Berlin: Travel allowance for pilot research stay at Turin (FU Berlin, Tina Beck-Hasselbach)
Presentations and Lectures
2026: Tina Beck, “From theory to practice: materials, forms and functions of wooden figures in ancient Egypt”, Workshop Craft Interactions in the Ancient World, FU Berlin, 16–17 April 2026
2026: Tina Beck, “Wooden Secrets at Asyut: Studying wooden objects at an excavation site (online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3qQm4IfJRU)
2026 Tina Beck, “From theory to practice: materials, forms and functions of wooden figures in ancient Egypt”, Workshop Craft Interactions in the Ancient World, FU Berlin, 16–17 April 2026
2026 Alan Crivellaro, Turin, Italy: Museo Egizio Torino: La Voce del legno: Leggere il tempo nella materia (The voice of wood: Reading time in the material) (University of Torino, Alan Crivellaro. (online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB37bKH7B_I).
2025 Monika Zöller-Engelhardt, “Material Culture Studies and why it matters”, Workshop Inside Ancient Egyptian Wood, FU Berlin, 23.05.2025
2025 Tina Beck, “Wood Anatomy and Egyptology – two fields one agenda?“, Workshop Inside Ancient Egyptian Wood, FU Berlin, 23.05.2025
2024 Tina Beck “Holzbestimmung mit Handlupe und Kamera. Erste Ergebnisse aus einem Testlauf am Neuen Museum, Berlin“, 60. Neue Forschungen der ägyptischen Geschichte und Kultur, 05.11.2024
Publications and Outreach
2026 Poster: Crivellaro, A., Ruffinatto, F., Zöller-Engelhardt, M., Beck, T., Piermattei, A., DendroScope: Broadening Tree-Ring Analysis Beyond Dendrochronological Dating, 45th International Symposium on Archaeometry, https://isa2026torino.it/
2026 Poster: Crivellaro, A., Ruffinatto, F., Piermattei, A., Zöller-Engelhardt, M., Beck, T., WoodScope: A Multiscale, Minimally Invasive Framework for Wood Identification, 45th International Symposium on Archaeometry, https://isa2026torino.it/
2026 Article: Ruffinatto, F., Capetta, S., Canepari, A., Crivellaro, A., A Multi-Scale Anatomical Wood Identification Approach Applied to Traditional Japanese Chord Instruments, Forests, 17(1), 122, doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/f17010122
2026 Article: Crivellaro, A., Ruffinatto, F., Piermattei, A., Zöller-Engelhardt, M., Beck, T., Through the glass: Identifying Ancient Wooden Objects in the Age of Digital Tools, in: World of Wood. Journal of the International Wood Collectors Society 79/1 (2026), 6–8.
2025 Article: Crivellaro, A., Ruffinato, F., Zöller-Engelhardt, M., Piermattei, A., Beck, T., Wood under the Lens: Unveiling Ancient Egyptian Heritage, Journal of Cultural Heritage 74 (2025), 138–147. Open Access: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2025.06.002
2024 Poster: Crivellaro, A., Ruffinatto, F., Resente, G.A., Beck, T., Zöller-Engelhardt, M., (2024), Advancing Ancient Egyptian Woods Identification. International Union of Forest Research Organizations World Congress XXVI (IUFRO 2024), Stockholm. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12804671
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