SCOTT, Pa., Jan. 13 (UPI) -- A computer scientist at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh is using his expertise and a high-tech scanner to retrieve information from old tombstones.
Yang Cai learned of Old St. Luke's Cemetery in Scott, Pa., from a colleague who drives past it regularly. The first burials there took place almost 250 years ago, and many of the older tombstones are no longer readable.
Cai scans the old stones and creates three-dimensional images that allow him to read the old names and epitaphs. He used similar techniques last summer to study rock art in Italy.
The Rev. Richard Davies, a retired Episcopal priest who serves as director at St. Luke's -- a church without a congregation -- said Cai's scans "are revealing data that I've never seen with my eye."
Davies said old marble and granite stones can still be read but the sandstone ones have weathered.
