1/9/2023 0 Comments Pixel check mark box papyrusAndreani The development of black inks has enabled writing to become an established method of communication in history. In this project, we aimed at recording the process However, current digitisation efforts concentrate on recording documents in their current state. Multispectral imaging has been utilised to examine cultural heritage documents by providing information about their physical properties. Whilst conservation focuses on developing methods to best preserve cultural heritage documents, we describe an unusual collaboration between conservation and image science to document through multispectral imaging the deliberate damage of a manuscript. Each example highlights how procedures from a discipline were adapted for the project through collaboration. We describe this collaboration through three examples: the use of phantoms taken from medical physics, a historically accurate model of parchment degradation, and a detailed description of the steps taken to run experiments and collect data within a manageable budget. This chapter describes a highly collaborative project in digital humanities, which used tools and expertise from a diverse range of disciplines: medical physics, image science, and conservation. However, by carefully selecting, optimising and combining techniques, text contained within these fragile and rare artefacts may eventually be open to non‑destructive imaging, identification, and interpretation. Furthermore, it is likely that no single imaging technique will to be able to robustly detect and enable the reading of text within ancient Egyptian mummy carton‑ nage. The tests demonstrated that each imaging modality needs to be optimised for this particular application: it is, in general, not sufficient to repurpose an existing device without modification. The phantoms allowed reliable and repeatable tests to be made at multiple sites on three continents. However, using terahertz imaging, it was possible to detect carbon‑based inks with good penetration but with less sensitivity to iron‑ based inks. X‑ray‑based techniques were sensitive to iron‑based inks with excellent penetration but were not able to detect carbon‑based inks. Optical imaging techniques were able to detect inks on all four phantoms, but were unable to significantly penetrate papyrus. The techniques include optical (multispectral imaging with reflection and transillumination, and optical coherence tomography), X‑ray (X‑ray fluorescence imaging, X‑ray fluorescence spectroscopy, X‑ray micro computed tomography and phase contrast X‑ray) and terahertz‑based approaches. Eight different techniques were compared by imaging four synthetic phantoms designed to provide robust, well‑understood, yet relevant sample standards using modern papyrus and replica inks. The use of an advanced range of different imag‑ ing modalities was investigated to test the feasibility of non‑destructive approaches applied to multi‑layered papyrus found in ancient Egyptian mummy cartonnage. Egyptologists, papy‑ rologists, and historians aim to recover and read extant text on the papyrus contained within cartonnage layers, but some methods, such as dissolving mummy casings, are destructive. Ancient Egyptian mummies were often covered with an outer casing, panels and masks made from cartonnage: a lightweight material made from linen, plaster, and recycled papyrus held together with adhesive.
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