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The article considers insufficiently studied problem of preservation underwater archaeology paper objects. The author shares good practical experience conservation and restoration of unique artefacts found by archaeologists on the merchant ship « Die Engiel Raphael » (Archangel Raphael) sanked almost 300 years ago. The main attention is focused on an integrated approach and consolidation of the efforts of restorers, underwater archaeologists and divers, researchers to determine the conservation method. In constant close collaboration with specialists from the workshop for graphics, books and documents conservation of the Grabar Art Conservation Center and of the Center for Underwater Research of the Russian Geographical Society has been developed a method for the conservation of four underwater archaeology paper objects. The article presents the results of research and restoration. Various techniques for drying, separating of cemented book-pages and ultrasonic cleaning for removing sandy-clay pieces, deeply embedded from the paper structure, are described. In developing main guidelines emphasized of conservation work for underwater artifacts, highlights the need for a special approach to each object and creation an individual program for restoration activities, taking into account its specifics. In forming the general basic principles of conservation of underwater artefacts, the necessity of a special approach to each object and drawing up an individual program of restoration measures, taking into account its specifics, is noted.

Cultural heritage objects present a special set of challenges for chemical analysis. Often micro-sampling or even contacting the object is deemed an unacceptable risk to the object. This study examined if specular reflection FTIR, a non-sampling and non-contact analytical technique, can provide insight into chemical composition of the layered coatings on Frédéric Flachéron’s paper negatives (1848–1852) in the Harrison D. Horblit Collection of Early Photography, in Houghton Library, at Harvard University. Specular reflection FTIR data confirmed the identification of beeswax and sandarac as the transparentizing media on Flachéron’s paper negatives, as previously published by Lee Ann Daffner. However, specular reflection FTIR analysis also indicated that some negatives had additional localized coatings of orange shellac in specific areas of the images. To understand why Flachéron retouched his negatives with orange shellac, modern experimental replications of the paper negative process were performed. Through modern experimentation with the paper negative technique, it was found that Flachéron’s coatings of shellac served as an integral part of his image-altering technique. The color of the orange shellac subtly alters contrast and density, but it does not mask an area the way an opaque watercolor or highly pigmented paint might. The fine adjustments to the negatives with orange shellac were an attempt to perfect the contrast in the print, and better render depth and detail. These discoveries add to a growing body of recent research that points to the historic and art historic importance of negatives and coatings in photography. The specificity with which specular reflection FTIR was able to nondestructively identify the chemical composition of the local coating, and specifically target the analysis on the areas in which it appeared, allowed for an understanding of Flachéron’s use of local coatings as a retouching method rather than a protective coating.

Archaeological LiDAR has evolved into an indispensable component of archaeological prospection and landscape archaeology. However, it is frequently employed as a black-box digital method, which confines it to the realm of a specialized field. Making scientific publications more accessible, transparent, and reproducible is one of the steps required to turn LiDAR into a background method for all archaeologists. This is possible, according to our proposal, through the Executable Map Paper concept. This concept can be understood as a type of executable paper that pursues Open Science’s goals. The proposed technical solution consists of a PDF frontend, a persistence layer, and a hyperlinked interactive map. Executable Map Paper is applicable to all map-dependent sciences, including geography, geology, and any geoscience. In this paper, we outline the theoretical context, propose technical solutions, and provide a practical illustration.

During the archaeological research conducted in 2019 under the project “The Former Headquarters of the Gestapo and the Communist Provincial Office of Public Security in Anstadt Avenue in Łódź. Interdisciplinary Site Research” under the supervision of Dr Olgierd Ławrynowicz, an object filled with products on a paper base and bookbinding materials was found in one of the excavations. This paper attempts to clarify the chronology of paper products and to identify their type (typescripts, prints of monetary value, books, bookbinding materials, arrangement drawings, other paper products) and the material used. The visible content was identified using basic research methods and digital photographic documentation of it was made to preserve it.

Paper materials and works of art on paper such as drawings, watercolors, prints, books, and manuscripts represent a large portion of museum, archive, and library collections. However, paper materials are infrequently the subject of technical studies due to inherent limitations in their analysis such as the fragility of the paper substrate, a lack of suitable sampling opportunities, and the presence of mixed, but chemically similar cellulosic materials. The application of principal component analysis (PCA) modeling to specular reflection FTIR data has the potential to provide a non-invasive means of analysis for major and minor components in paper materials. Using known study collection objects, PCA models distinguishing paper sizing materials and fiber types based on specular reflection FTIR data were successfully demonstrated thus providing a plausible alternative method for the identification of paper materials in collection objects without the need for destructive testing or sampling of the object.

Paper aging and protection processes play an essential function in the preservation of library collections and archives. In this study, some physical-mechanical properties of paper samples from XXth century books (private collections), such as pH acidity, tensile strength, and modulus of elasticity, as well as optical properties, such as absolute change in yellowness, were examined before and after treating them with hydroxyapatite nanoparticles (HAp). Accelerated light aging was also evaluated and discussed. The treatment with HAp nanoparticles increased the paper’s pH to slightly alkaline values (approximately pH 8). Washing and treating the paper improved its mechanical properties compared to untreated paper; the tear length increased by 35% and the modulus of elasticity increased by 56%. That the treated and aged samples are more elastic than the original samples demonstrates that HAp nanoparticles consolidated the cellulose fibers. Additionally, particle morphology, size, composition and size distribution were assessed via image analysis using scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDX), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and the ImageJ processing program.

Natural ageing has a major influence on the properties of paper, while light, heat, and humidity are the environmental influences that most disrupt the stability of paper. This research focuses on changes in straw-containing papers caused by accelerated ageing. The papers were made in the laboratory by mixing straw pulp with the pulp of recycled fibers in different weight ratios and were artificially aged by a dry-heat treatment (thermal oxidation) and UV radiation treatment (photo-oxidation) over a 24 h period to simulate natural ageing. The observed changes in the optical, surface, and chemical stability of papers were analyzed and are discussed in this paper. It is evident that, regardless of the origin of straw for pulp production, it forms papers that undergoes similar optical properties (photo-yellowing and brightness lose), while certain differences have been observed in surface and chemical stability. Based on all analyses performed as part of this research, it was found that paper produced with the addition of wheat pulp is the most stable of all laboratory straw-containing papers. However, it must be emphasized that, if lignin-containing straw pulp is used as the main constituent of paper, the brightness stability of such pulp must be improved, or the paper surface must be improved by surface finishing in order to obtain greater stability against ageing.

[Ar] تقييم كفاءة الثيمول كاحدى اجراءات الصيانة والترميم تطبيقا على السجلات الورقية المصابة بدار المحفوظات المصرية دار المحفوظات الوطنية المصرية هى ثاني أقدم دار أرشيفية فى العالم من أجل حماية جميع الوثائق والأوراق الأثرية والتاريخية الرسمية من الضياع والسرقة. والدار تمتلئ بنحو 150 مليون وثيقة أثرية وتاريخية رسمية.الا انه وللأسف الشديد اغلب هذه المواد الأثرية قد تعرضت لتدهور بيولوجى مما أدى إلى خسارة كبيرة. ومن هنا تظهر أهمية استخدام مبيدات الفطريات وقد وقع الاختيار على أحد أكثر المبيدات شيوعا فى مجال الاثار وهو «الثيمول» لدراسة مدى كفاءته تجاه الفطريات عند استخدامه بتركيزات مختلفة. هذا إلى جانب دراسة أولوية الحفظ للأرشيف الورقى المكتوب بخط اليد لعقود الزواج «بمحكمة دمياط» لما له من أهمية كبيرة في إبراز معلومات غاية فى الاهمية وثائقيا وذلك بعد تعرضه لعدوى فطرية. استراتيجيات عمليات الترميم والصيانة التى تمت بالدراسة تتم من اجل الحفاظ على هذا الدفتر الورقى من أجل الحفاظ عليه لما يحويه من معلومات أثرية هامة. كما تم استخدام بعض التقنيات الفحوص والتحليل خلال الدراسة وهى: طريقة حيود الأشعة السينية (XRD) للتعرف على الحبر الكربونى، والتحليل الطيفى للأشعة تحت الحمراء (FTIR) لتحديد المادة الرابطة للاحبارالمستخدمة ومدى بلورة السيليلوزالمكون الرئيسى للورق، حيث أظهرت النتائج أن الحبر الأسود المستخدم فلا الوئاثق الورقية بالدفتر عبارة عن كربون وأن المادة الرابطة للحبر هى الصمغ العربي. تم تطبيق عدة خطوات لترميم الدفتر مثل عملية التنظيف، تثبيت الأحبار، فرد الأوراق، إصلاح التمزقات، تدعيم الأجزاء الضعيفة وإزالة الترميمات السابقة غير المناسبة.وعلى هذا تهدف هذه الدراسة إلى إلقاء الضوء على دار المحفوظات الوطنية المصرية وإبراز دورها المهم في حماية وحفظ الوثائق الأثرية والتاريخية فضلا عن تقييم كفاءة الثيمول تجاه الفطريات باستخدام تركيزات مختلفة مع شرح أهم إجراءات الترميم المختارة للدفتر الورقى المكتوب بخط اليد الخاص بعقود الزواج بمحكمة دمياط. [En] The Egyptian National Archives Dar-Elmahfouzat is the second oldest archive house in the world built in order to protect all the official archaeological and historical documents and papers from loss and theft. It possesses about 150 million official archaeological and historical documents. Unfortunately, all these archaeological materials are exposed to biological degradation which results in great loss. Hence the importance of using fungicides. The choice fell on one of the most commonly used in the field “thymol” and its efficiency towards fungi in different concentrations. The author gives the priority of conservation to this important handwritten paper archive of the marriage contracts' of Damietta court, because of their great importance to posterity and to highlight such significant historical data threatened by fungal infection. The specific conservation strategies employed to conserve this paper archive were meant to keep them safe and secure and to give us the important archaeological information that they contain. Also some analytical methods were used here: X-ray diffraction (XRD) method for identifying the carbon ink, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) for determining the ink binder and the paper crystallinity. The results revealed that the black ink was carbon and ink binder was Gum Arabic. Different types of conservation processes were used: Cleaning process; fixing the inks; flattening and crease removal; repairing tears and supporting the weaker parts in completion process; and inappropriate previous repairs removal. This study aims to shed light on the Egyptian National Archives Dar-Elmahfouzat and highlight its important role. Also clarifying its importance in protecting and preserving the archaeological and historical documents, explain the thymol efficiency towards fungi in different concentrations and the most important treatment procedures for the selected handwritten paper archive of the marriage contracts of the court of Damietta.

This paper introduces the Watermark Imaging System (WImSy) which can be used to photograph, document, and study sheets of paper. The WImSy provides surface images, raking light images, and transmitted light images of the paper, all in perfect alignment. We develop algorithms that exploit this alignment by combining several images together in a process that mimics both the “surface image removal” technique and the method of “high dynamic range” photographs. An improved optimization criterion and an automatic parameter selection procedure streamline the process and make it practical for art historians and conservators to extract the relevant information to study watermarks. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated in several experiments on images taken with the WImSy at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the results are compared with manually optimized images.

The Gatehouse Project at Pontefract Castle took place between September 2019 and August 2020. This data paper describes the project data from the community focused archaeological investigation undertaken by DigVentures.

High Speed 2 (HS2) will be the largest programme of historic environment investigation and recording works ever undertaken in the UK. It is certain that the creation of HS2's historic environment physical and digital archive (High Speed Two Ltd. 2023) is an integral part of the lasting legacy of the programme, which presents an unprecedented opportunity for significant knowledge creation. HS2 historic environment works that have been undertaken for Phase One of HS2 between London to the West Midlands has resulted in a substantial digital archive, including Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data. This data paper highlights the GIS spatial datasets generated from the HS2 Phase One historic environment fieldwork programme. It explains the technical components of the datasets which are deposited with the Archaeology Data Service (ADS).

Melanins play a fundamental role in the biology and ecology of several fungal species. Unfortunately, this group of amorphous macromolecules also severely (and most times irreversibly) stains cultural heritage objects. Despite efforts made throughout the years, knowledge of the chemical composition and structure of melanins is still insufficient, which hampers the task of safely cleaning these colourants from cultural heritage materials in a targeted way without causing further deterioration. This work aimed therefore to contribute towards enlightening the characteristics of fungal melanins from three fungi that are common paper colonizers: Aspergillus niger, Chaetomium globosum and Cladosporium cladosporioides. The extracted melanins were characterized by FTIR, Raman, UV-vis, Solid-State NMR and MALDI-TOF MS spectroscopies and the effect of inhibitors of DHN-melanin and DOPA-melanin pathways on colony pigmentation and growth was evaluated. Although all the extracted colourants show a predominantly aromatic structure with carbonyl and phenolic groups, some differences between the melanins can be highlighted. Melanins obtained from Ch. globosum and Cl. cladosporioides exhibited similar structures and composition and both presented DHN-melanin characteristics, while A. niger’s melanins revealed a more complex and ordered structure, with a higher prevalence of highly conjugated carbonyls than the others, besides the additional presence of a yellow/green component. These conclusions cannot be overlooked while selecting targeted cleaning methodologies for melanin stains on cultural heritage materials.

The FeedSax project combined bioarchaeological data with evidence from settlement archaeology to investigate how, when and why the expansion of arable farming occurred between the 8th-13th centuries in England. It has generated and released a vast, multi-faceted archaeological dataset both to underpin its own published findings and to support further research.

These data were used to build an object detection model to locate Relict Charcoal Hearths (RCH) as described in the paper “When Computers Dream of Charcoal: Using Deep Learning, Open Tools and Open Data to Identify Relict Charcoal Hearths in and around State Game Lands in Pennsylvania” [1]. This is the second grouping of data for the paper above. The first grouping is also available in this journal, see “Geospatial and image data from the “When Computers Dream of Charcoal: Using Deep Learning, Open Tools and Open Data to Identify Relict Charcoal Hearths in and around State Game Lands in Pennsylvania” paper” [2]. These files consist of: JPEGs representing tiles of larger Slope TIFF files derived from LiDAR for the State Game Lands (SGL) of Pennsylvania, United States [3456]. A subset of these tiles was used to train the model. A Shapefile of points of known relict charcoal hearths (RCH). XML files representing the pixel points of known RCHs on JPEG files used for training. Jupyter notebooks of programs used to prepare data and train a Mask R-CNN model. The Mask R-CNN model H5 file. Shapefile and GeoJSON of object detection results from the model showing locations of possible RCH in all SGLs. XML files representing the pixel points of predicted RCH on JPEG files used for predictions. GeoJSON of results using cluster analysis. These data are stored onzenodo.org. The programs are stored on Github.com.

These data were used to build an object detection model to locate Relict Charcoal Hearths (RCH) as described in the paper “When Computers Dream of Charcoal: Using Deep Learning, Open Tools and Open Data to Identify Relict Charcoal Hearths in and around State Game Lands in Pennsylvania” [1]. This is the first grouping of data for the paper above. The second grouping is also available in this journal, see “Object detection model, image data and results from the “When Computers Dream of Charcoal: Using Deep Learning, Open Tools and Open Data to Identify Relict Charcoal Hearths in and around State Game Lands in Pennsylvania” paper”. These files consist of georeferenced Digital Elevation Model, Hillshade and Slope files derived from LiDAR for the State Game Lands (SGL). Included is a Shapefile and GeoJSON of State Game Land borders as well as the program used for downloading the LiDAR files. These data are stored on 'Zenodo.org'.

The data in the related digital archive was collected to examine the archaeological and historical evidence for material culture in English medieval rural households, with the aim of gaining a fuller picture than what might be attainable by looking only at objects or documents in isolation. The digital archive provides a starting point for anyone wishing to research aspects of medieval rural settlement.

Archaeological LiDAR has evolved into an indispensable component of archaeological prospection and landscape archaeology. However, it is frequently employed as a black-box digital method, which confines it to the realm of a specialized field. Making scientific publications more accessible, transparent, and reproducible is one of the steps required to turn LiDAR into a background method for all archaeologists. This is possible, according to our proposal, through the Executable Map Paper concept. This concept can be understood as a type of executable paper that pursues Open Science's goals. The proposed technical solution consists of a PDF frontend, a persistence layer, and a hyperlinked interactive map. Executable Map Paper is applicable to all map-dependent sciences, including geography, geology, and any geoscience. In this paper, we outline the theoretical context, propose technical solutions, and provide a practical illustration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]