Kentucky's rich cultural heritage is getting some scientific probing courtesy of a new state of the art lab at the University of Kentucky.

The goal of the Edas lab developing new technologies that unveil, protect and share stories of Kentucky's past.

One of the reasons why we wanted to build a lab here at the University of Kentucky is that we were really able, prior to this effort, to bring those materials to Kentucky.

What we do now is we work in partnership with folks who hold this material nationally and internationally, and through agreements for exchange of materials.

We bring that material to the lab to do this lab at Kentucky, and then we can use our equipment to do analysis on that right here in the bluegrass.

For example, the Smithsonian on the East or the Getty on the West.

But, in, in places like, the Southeast Conference, you know, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, we don't have a lot of focused equipment for heritage science.

And so one thing that's really special is that we serve this region, for many of the cultural heritage, institutions and projects that, could use this equipment but don't have easy access to the coasts.

Digital examination study and then access and preservation is crucial.

And I think we all agree that that's true.

But what happens in the corners of the museums and libraries, even in the corners of our own archives, is that we lose that material.

It disappears.

It's really hard to hang on to, you know, things fall apart.

The world, is full of damage and destruction.

And so I think it's really important for our cultural heritage and for the advancement of scientific approaches that can help us with that cultural material.

I think it's really important that you do lab play a role, right, in that preservation, that access, that study.

Few things have more impact than some of these cultural materials, that we talk about.

Some of the impacts are very focused and personalized.

Some of the impacts are actually global.

You know, when you talk about a manuscript like Beowulf or, something really well known from Petra or from Herculaneum or from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Right.

These things end up having global impact on scholarly progress and also on people's imaginations.

I would say for students who are interested, having access to that right here in the bluegrass, is pretty special and is an avenue that you wouldn't expect necessarily.

But it's one of the things we can feature.

Funding for the lab came from a $14 million infrastructure grant from the National Science Foundation.