Since the earliest civilizations, people have recorded their thoughts and experiences through storytelling, art, philosophy and other forms of expression. Studying these works – collectively known as the humanities – helps us understand the past and ultimately ourselves.

Today’s humanities scholars are rediscovering the past through traditional ways, such as reexamining an ancient mummy case with a fresh perspective, as well as more modern techniques, which include the use of big data analysis or 3-D and X-ray models.

These stories represent some of the ways Stanford scholars are probing ancient questions through modern and traditional methods to figure out how and why history unfolded the way it did and what makes us human.

(Image credit: Robert Kish / SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

X-ray, 3-D modeling and genetics

New tools that have helped scientific discovery, such as X-ray imaging and genetic sequencing, are also serving humanities scholars in their pursuit of understanding the past.

For example, archaeologists are using 3-D modeling to scan ancient bones and create realistic online models that they can analyze without touching the fragile objects themselves.

“The ideal situation would be for each one of my students to take an entire skeleton home and study it,” said Krish Seetah, assistant professor of anthropology. “Before, I used photographs, and two dimensions versus three is a completely different situation.”

3-D images of artifacts enrich experience for students, faculty

A new collaborative effort at Stanford University Libraries to capture 3-D models of the university’s artifacts, such as bones and art, helps scholars and students with analyzing and studying objects remotely.

War, clan structure explain odd biological event

Undergraduates Tian Chen Zeng and Alan Aw worked with Marcus Feldman, a professor of biology, to show how social structure could explain a genetic puzzle about humans of the Stone Age.

Hidden medical text read for the first time in a thousand years

With X-ray imaging at SLAC’s synchrotron, scientists uncovered a 6th century translation of a book by the Greek-Roman doctor Galen. The words had been scraped off the parchment manuscript and written over with hymns in the 11th century.

Stanford radiologists investigate woman who died in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago

A San Francisco museum brought an ancient mummy to the School of Medicine for a set of CT scans to learn more about the person beneath the bandages.

Human silhouette
(Image credit: mousitj / Getty Images)

Big data and digital analysis

Humanities scholars at Stanford are routinely employing computer-assisted techniques, such as machine-learning algorithms, to help generate or answer questions about the past.

For example, a research team co-led by Stanford historian Londa Schiebinger used machine-learning to track how linguistic changes in gender and ethnic stereotypes correlated with major social movements and demographic shifts in the U.S. Census data.

“This type of research opens all kinds of doors to us,” Schiebinger said. “It provides a new level of evidence that allow humanities scholars to go after questions about the evolution of stereotypes and biases at a scale that has never been done before.”

Uncovering forgotten history of Virginia Woolf’s press

Over the past six years, several Stanford researchers and English students have been helping develop a digital archive of early 20th-century publishers.

New Stanford project gets inside Voltaire’s mind

Stanford undergraduate Lena Zlock is developing a first-ever digital humanities study of Voltaire’s personal library, which contains over 6,700 books. She aims to make the library’s contents easily accessible and searchable online.

Algorithms reveal changes in stereotypes

New Stanford research shows that, over the past century, linguistic changes in gender and ethnic stereotypes correlated with major social movements and demographic changes in the U.S. Census data.

Stanford research explores novel perspectives on the evolution of Spanish

Using digital tools and literature to explore the evolution of the Spanish language, Stanford researcher Cuauhtémoc García-García reveals a new historical perspective on linguistic changes in Latin America and Spain.

Image credit: L.A. Cicero

Rediscovering the past

Sometimes discoveries about the past happen because someone new reexamined an object or a historical issue that many previous scholars have studied.

That fresh perspective is what helped Stanford student Ariela Algaze discover previously unknown writing on pieces of an ancient Egyptian mummy case that shattered during the 1906 earthquake.

“Being able to see and examine words written on a 2,000-year-old coffin was an exhilarating feeling,” Algaze said during the summer of 2018. “It’s like a voice calling out thousands of miles away.”

Inscriptions found on ancient Egyptian artifact damaged in 1906 quake

A Stanford sophomore found inscriptions on an ancient Egyptian mummy case as well as the name of the woman buried in it.

Old county jail rediscovered on Stanford land

Biologists and archaeologists hoping to improve the lives of threatened species rediscover remnants of the facility for petty criminals on Old Page Mill Road. The rediscovery of the jail surprised even long-time university archeologist Laura Jones.

Uncovering the lives of Chinese workers who built Stanford

In a new spring course, students are excavating the location of the former living quarters of Chinese workers who helped build Stanford.

New Stanford exhibition incorporates consultation with Native American communities

The Stanford exhibition From “Curios” to Ambassadors: Changing Roles of the Daggett Collection from Tribes of the Lower Klamath River highlights Native American tribal objects in a way that more precisely reflects their origins.

Anna Crist of the Stanford Library digitization staff
(Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

Inviting worldwide collaboration

In today’s interconnected world, humanities scholars can collaborate more broadly than was possible in the past.

The internet’s accessibility makes it easy for scholars to share their raw research and data with the rest of the world as soon as they get it. The idea is that if the data is out in the public, it can receive more critical scrutiny than one scholar could achieve.

For example, Stanford historian Tom Mullaney’s latest project documented the locations of thousands of gravesites that have been relocated in China over the past two decades. The focus of the project was to create an interactive website that displays the data in a way that makes it easy for a journalist or another researcher to examine.

Stanford scans storied Judah railroad map

People worldwide can now view the route Theodore Judah proposed for the Central Pacific Railroad branch of the First Transcontinental Railroad, thanks to the efforts of the David Rumsey Map Center at Stanford.

Documenting mass grave relocation in China

Stanford historian Tom Mullaney’s interactive website, The Chinese Deathscape: Grave Reform in Modern China, shows the locations of thousands of gravesites that have been relocated in China over the past two decades.

Bringing medieval texts to a contemporary audience

A new website curated by Stanford faculty and students, the Global Medieval Sourcebook, translates medieval literature into English for the first time.

New interactive Stanford website presents unexamined data on federal programs that aid local governments in the American West

A team at Stanford created an interactive website to shed light on the money the federal government has paid to counties and states in the American West over time in turn for controlling parts of their lands.