The benefit of a laser is that it can not only remove material, it can also discolor it. Either as a side effect of removing it or simply as a lower-power setting. And discolorations can be picked up with optical methods, which are far more accessible, reliable and higher density than 3d scanning.

Another variation of this is how we encode information into granite and other stones in Western funeral rites (grave stones): you engrave the information, then fill the groove with pigment. The pigment is susceptible to weathering, but the 3d information is pretty resistant. When the pigment is too worn down you just smear some more on there and wipe the excess away, leaving pigment only in the grooves, making the message clearly visible again