Tool: Dual energy CT scanner

Name: Dr Jaye McKenzie-Clark

Job: Archaeologist

Where: Macquarie University

Why is it important?

I worked in Pompeii for 15 years and now work in a site north east of Rome called Carsulae. It's smaller than Pompeii, but has a similar timeframe, 300BC to AD250. It's quite common in archaeological practice to analyse the composition of a clay. But normally it is totally destructive: you take a bit of the pot, grind it into a powder and vaporise it, then get a read out. A collaboration with a Macquarie University Hospital professor led us to develop a new non-destructive technique to analyse the composition of pottery. We just put it on the CT scanner bed, and 12 seconds later we have 120 gigabytes of data. Potters commonly stamped their name on this particular type of pottery; it's hugely important in dating Roman sites [so] I use the CT scanner to look at the composition of pieces that have the name of the potter on it. It allows you to say with some amount of certainty where the pottery has come from, how far it's travelled, and who was exchanging goods with whom in the ancient world.

Obviously it's an awkward tool to carry around in your back pocket.

What do your colleagues think of it?

There was great scepticism.Until we sat down and proved it works.

Unusual moment?

The Italian government allowed us bring 130 samples to Sydney to analyse.

I've never heard of anybody getting that much material out of Italy before. Not legally anyway. It was scanned in 12 seconds and sent back; we're still working through the data.

How much does it cost?

Millions! It's a special kind; you can't use a normal CT scanner.