There are no worries about breaking the fragile 3,000 year old objects because these are 21st century copies.

The 3D replicas were printed out by engineers at Lancaster University as part of a project aiming to make historical artefacts more accessible to visitors. 

Morag Clement, the archaeology curator at Kendal Museum said: “These Ancient Egyptian items are so rare that normally we don’t let anybody touch them. With these copies, people can pick them up, touch and interact with them instead of just viewing them behind glass.

“We can also put them into loan boxes sent out to schools to teach the children about history.”

The use of this technique could also make it easier to digitally repair broken antiquities.

The replicas were created by PhD student John Kaufman and Dr Allan Rennie from the Department of Engineering at Lancaster.

John Kaufman painstakingly photographed every object from 360 degrees.

He said: “Normally this would be done with a laser scanner but as part of my research, I used a much cheaper digital camera to see if I could make this method more accessible.

“This is a great attraction, as with a little training the museum’s own staff will be able to replicate many of the objects on display.”

Up to 150 photos of each object were then digitally stitched together to create a 3D virtual image of the original.

This virtual image was then used to print out the 3D replica layer by layer using Additive Manufacturing equipment at Lancaster University.

The research was presented at the ASME Engineering Systems and Design Analysis Conference in Copenhagen on June 25-27 2014.