Search

Tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) is the most commonly used silicon-based reinforcement agent for conserving art relics due to its cost-effectiveness and commercial maturity. However, the resulting silica gel phase is prone to developing cracks as the gel shrinks during the sol–gel process, potentially causing severe damage to the objects being treated. In this study, dodecyltrimethoxysilane (DTMS) was introduced into TEOS to minimize this shrinkage by adding elastic long chains to weaken the capillary forces. The gel formed from the DTMS/TEOS hybrid material was transparent and crack-free, featuring a dense microstructure without mesopores or micropores. It exhibited excellent thermal stability, with a glass transition temperature of up to 109.64 °C. Evaluation experiments were conducted on artificially aged, handmade bamboo paper. The TEOS-based hybrid material effectively combined with the paper fibers through the sol–gel process, polymerizing into a network structure that enveloped the paper surface or penetrated between the fibers. The surface of the treated paper displayed excellent hydrophobic properties, with no significant changes in appearance, color, or air permeability. The mechanical properties of the treated bamboo paper improved significantly, with longitudinal and transverse tensile strengths increasing by up to 36.63% and 44.25%, respectively. These research findings demonstrate the promising potential for the application of DTMS/TEOS hybrid materials in reinforcing paper relics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the acquisition process of 3D cultural relics, it is common to encounter noise. To facilitate the generation of high-quality 3D models, we propose an approach based on graph signal processing that combines color and geometric features to denoise the point cloud. We divide the 3D point cloud into patches based on self-similarity theory and create an appropriate underlying graph with a Markov property. The features of the vertices in the graph are represented using 3D coordinates, normal vectors, and color. We formulate the point cloud denoising problem as a maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation problem and use a graph Laplacian regularization (GLR) prior to identifying the most probable noise-free point cloud. In the denoising process, we moderately simplify the 3D point to reduce the running time of the denoising algorithm. The experimental results demonstrate that our proposed approach outperforms five competing methods in both subjective and objective assessments. It requires fewer iterations and exhibits strong robustness, effectively removing noise from the surface of cultural relic point clouds while preserving fine-scale 3D features such as texture and ornamentation. This results in more realistic 3D representations of cultural relics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a pedagogical approach to introducing undergraduate students to hagiology by comparing medieval sanctity to modern celebrity. The bodies of saints and celebrities are important loci for the transmission of sanctity or celebrity from a person to the public and for the continuity of identity. Examples include St. Faith, St. Cuthbert, Kim Kardashian, and Marilyn Monroe. Using a comparative method allows students who are non-religious to better apprehend the unfamiliar practices and beliefs around the cult of saints and relics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Burial stone relics remain in a humid, semi-enclosed environment for long periods, and temperature and humidity variations can cause deterioration acceleration. Yang Can's tomb was selected as the research object, and field monitoring and simulations were performed to investigate the characteristics of temperature and humidity variations, after which the simulation results were evaluated. The monitoring results showed that solar radiation, rainfall, wind speed, and depth of entry are important factors affecting the variation in the temperature and humidity of burial stone relics. The temperature outside the chamber is greatly affected by seasonal variations, while the humidity inside the chamber is influenced by seasonal variations, so appropriate measures should be implemented inside and outside the chamber during different seasons to alleviate deterioration. On the basis of the above analysis, a temperature and humidity model for the interior chamber of burial stone relics was established in COMSOL software 5.6, combined with a porous medium heat transfer model and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. The temperature and humidity inside the chamber can be calculated by the temperature and humidity outside the chamber. This study provides data support for hydrothermal, condensation and other related studies of burial stone relics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic relationship that exists between a religious rite and its territory is interpreted and analysed by religious anthropology as a form of protection, offered by the sacred to the place in which it resides. According to this interpretation, passage through the territory of what is reputed to be sacred or even its very presence as a sanctuary, drives evil away and is believed to perform a generally stable protective function. Within such a dynamic, the rite that actually creates this sacred passage, i.e., the procession of relics, lays the foundations for an analysis of the two specific variables that are, in actual fact, intwined: on the one side is the rite, and on the other, the territory. Such a relationship appears all the more problematic due to the progressive rationalisation of the religious dimension, extensively dealt with by Max Weber (Weber 1920) and accepted by contemporary sociology on religion, as it is now a supernatural phenomenon that is only considered to have a representational dimension. The internal secularization at the festival of Saint Rosalia happened in 2023, with the landing of the triumphal cart in New York. The rite moves to another new territory and transforms it. The cart of Saint Rosalia, preserved in the Columbus Citizens Foundation in New York, represents the identity of Sicilian immigrants but also a new form of ritualization on a new territory through an "ancient" ritual. When the sacred is located within the institutional dimension of a salvation religion presided over by an institution, it appears separate from any purely mechanical (and therefore magical) dimension, while the territory becomes a variable in which a multiplicity of factors are contained. These factors not only give importance to the very aspects of the ritual itself, boosting its civil and secular parts, but also to the religious programme, which undergoes unexpected transformations introduced by the presiding institution. The main object of this analysis is, therefore, to establish an interactive path whereby, on the one hand, the territory, through its various cultural components (both secular and religious), shapes the religious rite and how it places restrictions on those protective functions, while on the other, how the rite places its own constraints on the cultural transformations that take place in the fabric of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cathedral of Valencia, Spain, has preserved the so-called Holy Chalice of the Last Supper since 1437. It consists of a foot, a gold stem, and an upper cup carved in agate stone. Based on a pious tradition, this cup is supposed to be the one used by Jesus of Nazareth to institute the Eucharist. According to an archeological study published in 1960, this agate bowl was crafted around the 2nd–1st centuries BC, but people visiting this famous relic often wonder about its authenticity and about the evidence supporting it as a Hellenistic–Roman cup. Attempting to clarify this concern, a photographical characterization of the agate cup is presented and discussed. The main conclusions are the following: (i) The typology of the bowl is common to classical tableware, but the wall thickness, shape of the rim, and foot are typical of gemstone cups from the Hellenistic–Roman period. (ii) This cup would have been extremely valuable, which agrees with the location of the Cenacle in the aristocratic neighborhood of Jerusalem. This case study highlights the importance of further investigating the dating of historical objects as a key issue to support their authenticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cathedral of Valencia has kept an important relic since 1437: the Holy Chalice of the Last Supper. It consists of an agate cup, a gold stem, and a gemstone foot. According to a pious tradition, this cup is the one used by Jesus of Nazareth to institute the Eucharist. Tourists visiting Valencia Cathedral often doubt its authenticity. There are certain queries that pilgrims wonder about, some of which have not been studied in depth. For example: What is known about the family who owned the chalice? Why would Jesus use a gemstone cup instead of one made of glass, silver, or gold? Aimed at clarifying these concerns, the research methodology was essentially centered on a review of the literature. The main conclusions are the following: (i) The Cenacle belonged to a rich disciple of Jesus, who would have lent him a valuable cup of blessing. Quite likely, it was the family of Saint Mark, who had a close link with Saint Peter. (ii) It is unlikely that Jesus used a cup made of glass because this material was relatively affordable. By contrast, gemstone vessels were highly appreciated. This case study highlights the importance of promoting historic and scientific studies about Christian artworks as a pre-requisite to foster heritage tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this review, the conservation methods for various types of cultural relics enabled by hyperspectral imaging are summarized, and the hyperspectral cameras and techniques utilized in the process from data acquisition to analyzation are introduced. Hyperspectral imaging is characterized by non-contact detection, broadband, and high resolution, which are of great significance to the non-destructive investigation of cultural relics. However, owing to the wide variety of cultural relics, the utilized equipment and methods vary greatly in the investigations of the associated conservation. Previous studies generally select a single type of cultural relic for conservation. That is, seldom study has focused on the application of hyperspectral techniques to generalized conservation methods that are simultaneously suitable for different types of cultural relics. Hence, some widely used hyperspectral cameras and imaging systems are introduced first. Subsequently, according to the previous investigations, the methods used for image acquisition, image correction, and data dimensionality reduction in hyperspectral techniques are described. Thirdly, a summary of methods in cultural relic conservation based on hyperspectral techniques is presented, which involves pigments, grottoes and murals, and painting and calligraphy. Later, some challenges and potential development prospects in hyperspectral-based methods are discussed for future study. Finally, the conclusions are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 11th–12th centuries, extreme ascetic practices reappeared in Western Europe, in particular, the wearing of hauberks and heavy iron chains, associated with penitence and eremitism. This article discusses the charisma of three ascetic saints of the 12th century: Bernard the Penitent (d. 1182), Wulfric of Haselbury (d. 1154/55), and Godric of Finchale (d. 1170). Their hagiographies were written shortly after their death. The authors emphasize that they were revered as holy men already in their lifetime. Their charismatic power was revealed by miracles of healing and prophecy, sometimes in visions. The manifestations of their charisma continued and even increased after their death and were transmitted and spread through their relics. Their mortifications and the signs of their holiness are comparable to those of the stylites and other hermits of Syria of late Antiquity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research proposes a virtual restoration system and method for 3D digital cultural relics based on a fuzzy logic algorithm, aiming to solve the problems of the low classification accuracy and poor splicing effect of Terra Cotta Warrior fragments. This method adopts a series of steps to improve the efficiency and accuracy of fragment splicing. Firstly, features such as curvature, torsion, and left and right chord lengths were extracted from the fracture surface contour lines of the cultural relic fragments to form feature vectors. Then, the feature vector was fused and compressed by using the multilayer perceptron. The multilayer perceptron is a neural network model that can process and learn input data via multiple levels of computation, resulting in more expressive feature representations. Next, we used the calculation results of the multilayer perceptron to perform the splicing operation on the fragments. This means that, based on the calculation results of the feature vectors, the system can automatically select appropriate splicing methods to accurately match and splice fragments. Finally, by adjusting the weight of the multilayer perceptron, the error rate of fragment splicing can be reduced, further improving the accuracy of repair. The experimental results show that the method proposed in this article is significantly better than traditional methods in terms of time consumption and can effectively improve the efficiency of fragment matching and stitching. Conclusion: The fragment-stitching algorithm based on multi-feature adaptive fusion improved the speed and effectiveness of stitching in fragment-stitching tasks. In summary, the fragment-stitching algorithm based on multi-feature adaptive fusion can improve the speed and effectiveness of stitching in fragment-stitching tasks. The application of this method is expected to play an important role in the field of cultural relic protection, such as the restoration of Terra Cotta Warrior fragments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a revisionist account of the early circulation of copies of the Madonna of Santa Maria Maggiore, known since the nineteenth century as the Salus Populi Romani. Traditionally, the propulsion of the image into global circulation has been attributed variously to Pius V or Francisco Borja, the third Superior General of the Society of Jesus. The article argues that the circulation of the Saint Luke Madonna, as it was known at the time, was closely tied to the martyr's cult that grew up around the Jesuit missionary Inácio de Azevedo and the so-called Brazil Martyrs, a group of Jesuits murdered by Calvinist corsairs off the Canary Islands in 1570. Azevedo had intended to carry a copy of the Roman icon to Brazil, a copy that perished at sea with Azevedo and the party of Jesuit missionaries. The article suggests that the popularity of the image among Jesuits in Europe and the overseas missions was fueled by the nascent martyr's cult that followed Azevedo's death. Painted copies of the Saint Luke Madonna came to function, together with relics of the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne, as proxies for the missing material remains of the martyred Jesuits. The article argues that while the distribution of the image was globally extensive, circulation was restricted to an internal Jesuit martyr's cult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many important cultural relics in China, including many paper relics. Therefore, it is particularly important to find methods of protecting the handwriting in paper relics. This study focuses on the effects acrylic polyurethane materials have on preserving handwriting in paper relics by examining the color change and diffusion of handwriting before and after reinforcement treatments on handwriting materials, including ink, carbon ink, blue-black ink, pure blue ink, red ink, and pencil. The acrylic polyurethane materials have a certain degree of stability and enhance the handwriting of paper relics. We analyzed the acrylic polyurethane reinforcement material in terms of acid resistance, alkali resistance, oxidation resistance, dry heat aging resistance, and durability. The experimental results show that the optimal reinforcement concentration is within 15% for ink, 10% for carbon ink, 20% for blue-black ink, 15% to 20% for pure blue ink, and 3% for red ink and pencil. Finally, the surface of the reinforced paper and handwriting were observed through laser microscopy, SEM, EDS, and infrared spectroscopy and the protective effect of acrylic polyurethane reinforcement material on handwriting was determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We used statistical methods to study the classification of high-potassium glass and lead–barium glass and analyzed the correlation between the chemical composition of different types of glass samples. We investigated the categorization methodology of glass cultural relics, conducted a principal component analysis on the chemical composition data of the glass, and developed a case-specific clustering algorithm (K-Means++) to further categorize the glass cultural relics. K-Means++ was developed to reduce the sensitivity of a traditional K-Means clustering algorithm, by choosing the next clustering center with probability inversely proportional to the distance from the current clustering center. Then we verified the validity of the six subcategories we defined by inertia and silhouette score and evaluated the sensitivity of the clustering algorithm. We obtained a robustness ratio that maintained over 0.9 in the random noise test and a silhouette score of 0.525 in the clustering, which illustrated significant divergence among different clusters and showed the result is reasonable. With our proposed algorithm and classification result, a more comprehensive understanding of glass relics can be gained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an investigation of two recently discovered paper sheets of the Incantation of Wish-Fulfillment from the Silla kingdom, this paper reveals that early Korea had more diverse forms of dhāraṇī practices than previously assumed. Through analyses of these incantation sheets, this paper contributes toward filling the gap in our current understanding of the material practice pertaining to the Incantation of Wish-Fulfillment of medieval East Asia. Previously, all known traces of material dhāraṇīs from early Korea, with just a few exceptions, were related to the Sūtra of the Pure Light Incantation enshrined in the relic crypts of pagodas—a practice that has little connection to contemporaneous Chinese dhāraṇī practice. However, the newly discovered Incantation of Wish-Fulfillment sheets, whose date this paper infers to be between the eighth and ninth century, show that Unified Silla had a dhāraṇī practice closely linked to coeval Chinese practice. The Incantation of Wish-Fulfillment sheets from Silla show the modification and continuation of Chinese dhāraṇī practice. Unlike the Chinese amulet sheets of the Incantation of Wish-Fulfillment that were buried in tombs, the Silla amulet sheets were likely enshrined in one of the pagodas erected on Mount Nam in Silla's capital. At the same time, they were placed in the pagoda to wish for good afterlives of the soldiers who died at the battle, suggesting that they had a mortuary function similar to those buried in Chinese tombs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1082, at the council of Charroux convened by the papal legate Amatus of Oloron, astonished witnesses observed the Holy Prepuce, a rare body relic of Christ himself, to be miraculously spotted with fresh blood. This spectacular miracle holds implications for our understanding of charismatic strategies of religious reform in France in the era of Pope Gregory VII. Gregory's use of standing legates with regional mandates, such as Amatus, was a novelty in papal administration, but the legates, though empowered as proxies of the pope, were often weak lieutenants. When they could not induce or coerce cooperation, they frequently confronted the impotence of their legal–canonical mandates. The miracle at Charroux, I will show, exemplifies an alternative charismatic strategy, harnessing liturgical art and spectacle to magnify the legate's stature as an authority in the context of the Eucharistic controversy and religious reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the symbols used for representing power in the Middle Ages were the relics of saints and martyrs. When it came to political power, relics were one of the most cherished symbolic instruments to achieve legitimation of political power. However, no texts from the Middle Ages can be found that reflect the practice of associating relics with power. Rather, we have to assume or derive that reflection indirectly through narratives and stories around the relics present in the culture and religion of the time. This article reflects on the symbolic use of relics from a theological–political perspective: What kind of power acts through relics? What meaning of power is embodied in their political use of them? The thesis that the article will defend is that reflection on the politics of relics leads to a resignification of the idea of power in the Middle Ages, which is closely connected to the idea of charisma originating in the writings of the Apostle Paul. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific examination of the heart of Blessed Pauline Jaricot—a French missionary figure—was carried out in 2022. As tandem mass spectrometry proteotyping has proven to be valuable to obtain the broad taxonomic repertoire of a given sample without any a priori information, we aimed at exploring the conditions of preservation of the relics and possible conditions of death. Metaproteomics and high-resolution microtomography imaging approaches were combined. A dataset comprising 6731 high-resolution MS/MS spectra was acquired and 968 of these spectra could be assigned to specific peptidic biomolecules. Based on the taxonomical information encompassed by the identified peptide sequences, 5 phyla were identified amongst eukaryota (94% of the biomass): Ascomycota (55%), with the species Aspergillus versicolor, Trichophyton mentagrophytes and Aspergillus glaucus, corresponding to expected cadaverous fungal flora; Chordata (42%), represented by a unique species, Homo sapiens; Streptophyta (3%); and Arthropoda (traces). Bacteria (6% of the biomass) were poorly represented. No trace of embalming substance could be retrieved, nor any pathogens. Imaging evidenced no heart defect nor embalming traces. No evidence that was inconsistent with natural and spontaneous conservation could be retrieved. This study prefigures the power of modern molecular techniques such as paleoproteotyping coupled to microtomography to gain insight into historical relics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The story of the Śrāvastī miracles is one episode of the Buddha's biography that is depicted in the art forms of Dvāravatī from about the 7th to the 11th centuries CE. The fact that many artefacts were produced—in such variety, over such a long period, and at so many sites—shows the popularity of the scene of the Śrāvastī miracles in the Dvāravatī culture. The objective of this research paper is to analyze the significance of the story of the Śrāvastī miracles that affected the creation of Dvāravatī art in Thailand by examining the textual sources together with the Dvāravatī artefacts. The analysis shows that the stories of the Śrāvastī miracles were significant in various ways, being one of the Buddha's necessary deeds, a principal miracle only performed by the Buddha, a means of converting others to Buddhism, and a key source for the idea of making Buddha images as an act of merit. These significant features may explain the popularity of the Śrāvastī miracle theme in Dvāravatī culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A silkworm deity was a Trade God worshipped by the court and the folk, and was also a spiritual symbol of sericulturists in medieval China. Images of the silkworm deity in ancient Chinese art are important relics of material heritage for studying culture and ritual activities in medieval China. This paper investigates images of silkworm worship from the Han Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty to distinguish between their use by the court and the folk. This paper explores the gradual personification of the silkworm deity in medieval China, as well as the differences in the identity of the silkworm deity connected to the varying status of worshipers and the functions of the silkworm deity. It is proposed that silkworm deity worship is evidence of a tendency toward polytheism, and has a variety of identities and unified functions under the trend of continuous integration of three major religions and folk religion. The worship of the silkworm deity has the characteristics of hybridity, integrated and patriarchal, as well as the social edification and practical functionality caused by the different mentality of official and folk silkworm deity worship in medieval China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a survey of archival and primary source material, this article discusses the existence of St. Thomas Becket's relics in Siena cathedral. The institution's inventories indicate that, from 1482 until ca. 1529, the relics were housed in an ostensory kept in the sacristy. Today, this object is displayed in the Sala del Tesoro, in the Museum of the Opera del Duomo in Siena. Although the ostensory has been examined in previous scholarship concerned with mapping the cathedral's heritage, its function as a vessel for the relics of Thomas Becket, and indeed the very presence of these relics in Siena, remain unexplored. Thus, seeking to understand the nature of Becket's reception in Siena, I examine the whereabouts of his relics within the cathedral, to then widen the investigation to the city at large. The evidence shows that although there were no chapels, altars or churches dedicated to Thomas Becket within the city walls, Siena still engaged with Becket's sainthood and legacy on multiple levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contributing to the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within Target 11.4 "Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world's cultural and natural heritage", it is critical to monitor the spatial and temporal stabilities of cultural heritages. The study of the interactive relationship between earthquakes and the protection of cultural heritages needs to be strengthened. On 27 September 2021, the destructive Mw 5.9 Arkalochori earthquake occurred ~25 km away from the city of Heraklion (Greece) where the Heraklion City Wall (HCW), a representative cultural heritage of Greece and Europe, was located. This offered a proper case to investigate the shortcomings aforementioned. Here, we intend to set up and answer the following three questions (Whether, Where and What, 3Ws): Whether there were impacts on the HCW caused by the Arkalochori earthquake? Where did the maximum deformation occur? What was the relationship between seismic deformation between the epicenter and the HCW over time? We performed two-dimensional (2D) InSAR measurements for both co-seismic and post-seismic deformations using the ascending and descending Sentinel-1A SAR images. The spatial-temporal characteristics of Up–Down (UD) and East–West (EW) were revealed. The 2D co-seismic deformation field showed that the near-filed deformations were dominating compared with the deformations at the HCW, the UD deformation was mainly featured with subsidence with a maximum value of ~21 cm, the EW deformation was ~9 cm westward and ~10 cm eastward. The time-series measurements showed that: (1) temporally, the HCW responded quickly to the Arkalochori earthquake, and the accumulative deformations at the seven different bastions of the HCW showed the same trend as the near-field area over time. (2) Spatially, the closer to the Mw 5.9 epicenter, the larger the deformations that occurred. (3) The EW and UD deformation trends of the HCW that were consistent with the Mw 5.9 epicenter were interrupted at the middle time spot (22 January 2022), indicating the influence of another earthquake sequence consisting of eight earthquakes with magnitudes larger than 3.5 that happened on 16–18 January 2022. Respectively, to summarize and address the aforementioned 3Ws based on the post-seismic analysis accomplished by the MSBAS method, the Arkalochori earthquake did affect the HCW; besides, the influences of the ~13 km earthquake sequence were also detected; the nearest part to the epicenter suffered the most; the deformation trends of the HCW were approximately the same with the epicenter area of the Arkalochori earthquake both in the UD and EW directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three-dimensional laser scanning technology can be used to quickly, efficiently, and accurately obtain spatial three-dimensional information of cultural relics without contacting the target during the scanning process. The results of this study showed that the extraction of human bones from the Shenna ruins via the auxiliary application of three-dimensional scanning technology reduced human intervention and destruction on the site compared with the traditional archaeological human bone packaging and extraction work method. When combined with the application of three-dimensional scanning technology, the original data information extracted on the spot were more comprehensive and accurate. Additionally, the technology provided us with important scientific data which can be used to discuss the phylogenetic composition of the ancient Qiang people in the settlement village, as well as a new applications of ideas for three-dimensional laser scanning technology usage in the field extraction of cultural relics. However, a follow-up study is needed to improve the comparisons of its applications, providing a conventional auxiliary means for cultural relic extraction and a technical means for cultural relic protection evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article scrutinizes the use of liminality as a term to understand medieval dance practices. With the case of the feast day of St. Eluned described in Gerald of Wales Itinerarium Cambriae, I first present common ways that historians and theologians have used the term liminality in order to describe historical depictions of feasts of saints where more unruly forms of movement and dancing have happened. I then analyze this specific depiction by Gerald of Wales through a combination of a kinesic approach and a hermeneutics of suspicion and charity. This approach shows that earlier understandings of dancing always being a problematic element in traditions of Christianity in the west needs to be nuanced. After this, I turn to the critique that Caroline Bynum Walker has brought up, concerning the use of the term liminality in the medieval context. Taking her critique seriously, I return to the story of St. Eluned by focusing on the lived religion from the perspective of the female characters in the setting. Finally, I also bring in Vincent Lloyd's distinction between rituals and liturgy, to further strengthen how theological discussions can bring in more nuanced and important additions in how we may understand chaotic forms of medieval dance in new ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decade, the curation of Islamic art and artifacts has been crossed by tensions at both the theoretical and practical level. Not only has it been continuously grappling with the Orientalist legacy, but it has also been operating in a global contemporaneity affected by multiple conflicts engendering a misperception of Muslims and Islam by non-Muslims. With this heavy background, this curation has been pursuing three main objectives: educating the public, decolonizing the museum, and reaching out to the Muslim communities and refugees living in non-Muslim societies. However, in the West, which remains worldly influential in the domain of heritage management, the first two objectives drove curators to engage in problematic practices, most notably the suppression of what we may call the "religious plot" in the exhibits' narrative. Moreover, while the educational impulse led to a secular didactic scholasticism erected as the supreme exhibitory norm, the decolonizing enterprise took on an ideological turn in the form of a neo-postcolonial discourse at odds with a reality that has considerably changed since the seventies. Contesting the "being Islamic" of the material curated, this discourse separates religion from culture, thus relegating the faith to a theme among other multiple themes in the museum displays. That this state of affairs is problematic appears in crude light as, in the last decade, a new Muslim-led curatorship has been challenging this secularist curatorial politics. Re-centering Islam in the representational emplotment regarding Islamic culture in the exhibitory space and experimenting in the installations' design to this effect, this curatorship, this essay's author believes, holds the future of Islamic museology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Aesculapian snake (Zamenis longissimus) is distributed in Central and Southern Europe, the Balkans, Anatolia, and Iran, but had a wider mid-Holocene distribution into Northern Europe. To investigate the genetic affinity of a Danish population that went extinct in historical times, we analysed three ethanol-preserved individuals dating back to 1810 using a silica-in-solution ancient DNA extraction method, combined with next-generation sequencing. Bioinformatic mapping of the reads against the published genome of a related colubrid snake revealed that two of the three specimens contained endogenous snake DNA (up to 8.6% of the reads), and this was evident for tooth, bone, and soft tissue samples. The DNA was highly degraded, observed by very short average sequence lengths (<50 bp) and 11-15% C to T deamination damage at the first 50 position. This is an effect of specimen age, combined with suboptimal, and possibly damaging, molecular preservation conditions. Phylogeographic analyses of a 1638 bp mtDNA sequence securely placed the two Danish Aesculapian snakes in the Eastern (Balkan glacial refugium) clade within this species, and revealed one previously-undescribed haplotype. These results provide new information on the past distribution and postglacial re-colonization patterns of this species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural relics represent national or even global resources of inestimable value. How to efficiently manage and preserve these cultural relics is a vitally important issue. To achieve this goal, this study proposed, designed, and implemented an RFID and Sensor Web-enabled smart cultural relics management system (SCRMS). In this system, active photovoltaic subtle energy-powered Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is used for long-range contactless identification and lifecycle management of cultural relics during their storage and circulation. In addition, different types of ambient sensors are integrated with the RFID tags and deployed around cultural relics to monitor their environmental parameters, helping to ensure that they remain in good condition. An Android-based smart mobile application, as middleware, is used in collaboration with RFID readers to collect information and provide convenient management for the circulation of cultural relics. Moreover, multiple sensing techniques are taken advantage of simultaneously for preservation of cultural relics. The proposed system was successfully applied to a museum in the Yongding District, Fujian Province, China, demonstrating its feasibility and advantages for smart and efficient management and preservation of cultural relics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the transformation of hairworks in America during the mid-nineteenth-century. Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin transformed the meaning of hair and hairworks in the American cultural imaginary by endowing Little Evangeline St. Clare's hair with sacred, moralizing power. Likewise, after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln's hair achieved nationwide, relic-like significance. The Abraham Lincoln Papers contains six hair requests; these letters demonstrate that the cultural meaning of Lincoln's hair resembles the fictional power of Eva's hair in Stowe's novel. Analyzing this phenomena of relic-like hair modifies our understanding of the unprecedented sentimental reaction to Lincoln's assassination and particularly the fascination with seeing and approaching the president's body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio relics are extended radio emission features which trace shock waves in the periphery of galaxy clusters originating from cluster mergers. Some radio relics show a highly polarised emission, which make relics an excellent probe for the magnetisation of the intra-cluster medium. The origin of the relic polarisation is still debated. It could be a result of tangentially stretching the magnetic field at the shock surface. This scenario would naturally explain the alignment of the polarisation (E-vectors) with the shock normal. We have implemented a toy model for the relic polarisation according to this scenario. We find that the magnetic field strength itself crucially affects the fractional polarisation. Moreover, we find that the shock strength has surprisingly little effect on the overall polarisation fraction. Finally, we find that the fractional polarisation may decrease downstream depending on the magnetic field strength. Our results demonstrates that the shock compression scenario provides a very plausible explanation for the radio relic polarisation which specific features permitting to test the origin of radio relic polarisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precise identification of material sources is of great significance to archaeological study, conservation, and restoration of stone cultural relics. The present study proposes a simple and efficient approach to identifying the material source of stone cultural relics based on portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (pXRF) and statistical analyses. Chemical elements of stone samples, including Ca, K, Fe, Al, Si, Cl, S, and Mg from both cultural relics and potential quarries, were first measured non-destructively using a pXRF device. Obtained chemical element data were then classified using statistical techniques (i.e., cluster analysis and principal component analysis) to match tested materials from cultural relics to the material from a quarry, thereby identifying the material source of stone cultural relics. The proposed method was applied to identify the material sources of the Jin Gang Throne Tower (JGT Tower), the stele of "Rebuilding Pu'ansi Temple" (PAS Stele), and the stele of "Renovation of Sanjinmiao Temple" (SJM Stele) in Beijing Stone Carving Art Museum. The study shows that pXRF can be used on-site for handheld, fast, inexpensive, and non-destructive measurements of the elemental composition of stone materials, being a powerful tool for identifying the material source of stone culture relics especially immovable and large-scale ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paper acidification causes paper relics to undergo embrittlement and decay, to form dregs, and even to break upon a single touch; therefore, reinforcement and deacidification treatments are essential steps for paper conservation and to retard the deterioration and prolong the life of objects. Polymeric adhesives play an essential role in reinforcement and deacidification treatments, although it is not well studied. In this work, the effect of polymeric adhesives on the conservation process and their protective effects on acidified paper relics were studied. Firstly, three polymeric adhesives, including wheat starch paste, polyvinyl butyral (PVB), and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), were selected as research objects. Subsequently, their effects on four popular conservation methods were further discussed, including traditional mounting, hot-melt with silk net, alcohol-soluble cotton mesh, and water-soluble cotton mesh. Additionally, as an example, the reversibility and long-term durability of water-soluble adhesive PVA-217 were assessed. Using a computer measured and controlled folding endurance tester, pendulum tensile strength tester, tear tester, burst tester, FT-IR, video optical contact angle tester, and other instruments, the conservation application of water-soluble adhesives in paper relics was evaluated. This study provides a scientific basis and experimental data for the application of polymeric adhesives in the conservation of paper relics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mobilization processes initiated by the medieval practice of Christian pilgrimage do not only concern the journeys of human travellers but also of things. The transport of objects to and from pilgrimage sites derives from a pre-modern concept of charisma as a specific kind of energy that can be transferred to things and substances. This mutual mobilization of humans and things can be described as the entangled processes of charismatic charging and re-charging; we argue that this pre-modern logic of contiguity and contagion has survived the multiple transformations of individual travel until today. Even travel dispositives of the 20th and 21st centuries presuppose kinds of situational and spatialized charisma involving human and non-human agents. We illustrate this by the example of the world-renowned Oberammergau Passion Play with its unique playing continuity from the early 17th century onwards. We argue that by taking objects home from elevated places, situational and site-specific charisma can be taken home. To describe the relationship between travel by pilgrims, the mobility of objects, and the mutual charismatic charging of elevated places and things, we propose three perspectives on the material remains of elevated situations. In addition to relics and souvenirs, we propose 'spolia' as a third category which allows for the description of discontinuity and transformation in practices of elevating things. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automatically selecting a set of representative views of a 3D virtual cultural relic is crucial for constructing wisdom museums. There is no consensus regarding the definition of a good view in computer graphics; the same is true of multiple views. View-based methods play an important role in the field of 3D shape retrieval and classification. However, it is still difficult to select views that not only conform to subjective human preferences but also have a good feature description. In this study, we define two novel measures based on information entropy, named depth variation entropy and depth distribution entropy. These measures were used to determine the amount of information about the depth swings and different depth quantities of each view. Firstly, a canonical pose 3D cultural relic was generated using principal component analysis. A set of depth maps obtained by orthographic cameras was then captured on the dense vertices of a geodesic unit-sphere by subdividing the regular unit-octahedron. Afterwards, the two measures were calculated separately on the depth maps gained from the vertices and the results on each one-eighth sphere form a group. The views with maximum entropy of depth variation and depth distribution were selected, and further scattered viewpoints were selected. Finally, the threshold word histogram derived from the vector quantization of salient local descriptors on the selected depth maps represented the 3D cultural relic. The viewpoints obtained by the proposed method coincided with an arbitrary pose of the 3D model. The latter eliminated the steps of manually adjusting the model's pose and provided acceptable display views for people. In addition, it was verified on several datasets that the proposed method, which uses the Bag-of-Words mechanism and a deep convolution neural network, also has good performance regarding retrieval and classification when dealing with only four views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Changxi River Basin is a small root-like watershed, surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing the sea to the southeast. It is located on the border between Fujian and Zhejiang on the southeast coast of China. The area gave rise to the Changxi Culture that began in the Sui and Tang Dynasties and flourished in the Song Dynasty. Buddhism in the Changxi Basin was introduced no later than the 9th century. As the core hinterland of the Changxi Basin, Fu'an has always been an important center for Buddhism in Eastern Fujian. It reached its peak in the 10th to 13th centuries during the Song Dynasty. This article conducts a comprehensive investigation and study of the existing Buddhist temple sites and relics in Fu'an. It highlights these structures' single-bay pattern of construction, based on rectangular plans in which the longitudinal axis extends along the plan's direction of depth. This is a pattern rarely seen in the history of Chinese Buddhist architecture. The paper also summarizes a common element in these temples, their petal-shaped corrugated stone pillars which are divided into eight segments. Lastly, it illustrates the evolution of the temples in the Changxi River Basin from single-bay layouts to those with widths of multiple bays and indicates the unique status and associated values of single-bay Buddhist temples in the history of southern Buddhist architecture. The study examines new local findings and ideas for the study of Chinese Buddhist architectural history, providing academic support for the protection and research of Buddhist architectural heritage in Southeast China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio relics are diffuse synchrotron sources that illuminate shock waves in the intracluster medium. In recent years, radio telescopes have provided detailed observations about relics. Consequently, cosmological simulations of radio relics need to provide a similar amount of detail. In this methodological work, we include information on adiabatic compression and expansion, which have been neglected in the past in the modelling of relics. In a cosmological simulation of a merging galaxy cluster, we follow the energy spectra of shock accelerated cosmic-ray electrons using Lagrangian tracer particles. On board of each tracer particle, we compute the temporal evolution of the energy spectrum under the influence of synchrotron radiation, inverse Compton scattering, and adiabatic compression and expansion. Exploratory tests show that the total radio power and, hence, the integrated radio spectrum are not sensitive to the adiabatic processes. This is attributed to small changes in the compression ratio over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio relics are arc-like synchrotron sources at the periphery of galaxy clusters, produced by cosmic-ray electrons in a μ G magnetic field, which are believed to have been (re-)accelerated by merger shock fronts. However, not all relics appear at the same location as shocks as seen in the X-ray. In a previous work, we suggested that the shape of some relics may result from the pre-existing spatial distribution of cosmic-ray electrons, and tested this hypothesis using simulations by launching AGN jets into a cluster atmosphere with sloshing gas motions generated by a previous merger event. We showed that these motions could transport the cosmic ray-enriched material of the AGN bubbles to large radii and stretch it in a tangential direction, producing a filamentary shape resembling a radio relic. In this work, we improve our physical description for the cosmic rays by modeling them as a separate fluid which undergoes diffusion and Alfvén losses. We find that, including this additional cosmic ray physics significantly diminishes the appearance of these filamentary features, showing that our original hypothesis is sensitive to the modeling of cosmic ray physics in the intracluster medium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trochodendron aralioides Siebold & Zucc. is a relic tree that is discontinuously scattered across the mountainous areas of Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, but the origin of T. aralioides in South Korea is still unclear and debated. To confirm its distribution and explore its origins, we constructed a streamlined framework to examine potential species distribution using multiple open access data and free and open-source software, as well as employing maximum entropy principles to predict the potential distribution of T. aralioides. The results showed reasonably good discrimination and were used to examine and discuss the explicit distribution of T. aralioides. The potential distribution of T. aralioides in Japan extended from Iriomote Island to approximately 37° N in Honshu on the Pacific Ocean side. In Taiwan, the potential distribution of T. aralioides was more common than in Japan. It occurred at 1500–3000 m a.s.l. across the Central Mountain Range and decreased toward the northern and southern tips, correlating to the descending pattern of the cloud belt. Thermal and moisture conditions were important factors to determine the distribution of T. aralioides. The potential distribution indicated that Jeju island had high potential as a habitat for T. aralioides, and that may indirectly imply its existence and origins in South Korea, as some researchers have noted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the Counter-Reformation medievalization of Polish–Lithuanian St. Kazimierz Jagiellończyk (1458–1484)—whose canonization was only finalized in the seventeenth century—as a case study, taking up questions of the reception of cults of medieval saints in post-medieval societies, or in this case, the retroactive refashioning into a venerable medieval saint. The article investigates these questions across a transcultural Italo–Baltic context through the activities of principal agents of the saint's re-fashioning as a venerable saint during the late seventeenth century: the Pacowie from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Medici from the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, during a watershed period of Tuscan–Lithuanian bidirectional interest. During this period, the two dynasties were entangled not only by means of the shared division of Jagiellończyk's bodily remains through translatio—the ritual relocation of relics of saints and holy persons—but also self-representational strategies that furthered their religio-political agendas and retroactively constructed their houses' venerable medieval roots back through antiquity. Drawing on distinct genres of textual, visual, and material sources, the article analyzes the Tuscan–Lithuanian refashioning of Kazimierz against a series of precious reliquaries made to translate holy remains between Vilnius to Florence to offer a contribution to the entangled histories of sanctity, art and material culture, and conceptual geography within the transtemporal and transcultural neocolonial context interconnecting the Middle Ages, Age of Reformations, and the Counter-Reformation between Italy and Baltic Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ceramic cultural relics have an important cultural value, and their detection technology plays a pivotal role in the protection of cultural relics. The traditional detection method of ceramic relics is based on X-ray technology, resulting in damage to the cultural relics. The terahertz-wave transmission is nondestructive; yet, the terahertz imaging has several technical problems, such as complex algorithms and unclear imaging. In this paper, we propose a terahertz-wave imaging system of a 0.2-terahertz operating frequency with a single input and single output and perform the transmission imaging experiment of the ceramic container. This design adopts the iterative threshold segmentation imaging method to obtain the high-quality transmission image and the neural network algorithm in the imaging recognition. Both the imaging and identification results effectively prove excellent performance, such as the high efficiency, high precision, and good reliability of the nondestructive testing system for the ceramic relics. The resolution can reach 2 mm, and the time for imaging identification can be <10 s, which will provide support for the nondestructive testing of ceramic cultural relics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital documentation of cultural relics plays an important role in archiving, protection, and management. In the field of cultural heritage, three-dimensional (3D) point cloud data is effective at expressing complex geometric structures and geometric details on the surface of cultural relics, but lacks semantic information. To elaborate the geometric information of cultural relics and add meaningful semantic information, we propose a modeling and processing method of smart point clouds of cultural relics with complex geometries. An information modeling framework for complex geometric cultural relics was designed based on the concept of smart point clouds, in which 3D point cloud data are organized through the time dimension and different spatial scales indicating different geometric details. The proposed model allows smart point clouds or a subset to be linked with semantic information or related documents. As such, this novel information modeling framework can be used to describe rich semantic information and high-level details of geometry. The proposed information model not only expresses the complex geometric structure of the cultural relics and the geometric details on the surface, but also has rich semantic information, and can even be associated with documents. A case study of the Dazu Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva Statue, which is characterized by a variety of complex geometries, reveals that our proposed framework is capable of modeling and processing the statue with excellent applicability and expansibility. This work provides insights into the sustainable development of cultural heritage protection globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, the acidity of paper-based relics was determined by an extraction method and using a pH meter. This method could not obtain the total acidity of the paper-based relics because it only detected the concentration of free protons in the aqueous soaking solution. To overcome this defect, a new method for determining the total acidity of paper-based relics has been established by using quaternary alloy quantum dots. The quantum dots, CdZnSeS, modified by p-Aminothiophenol (pATP) were prepared, and their composition and structure were characterized. The fluorescence behavior of prepared quantum dots with acidity was investigated. The following results were obtained. The fluorescence of CdZnSeS-pATP quantum dots could decrease with increases in acidity because pATP dissociated from the surfaces of the quantum dots due to protons or undissociated weak acids. Based on this feature, a method for determining the acidity of paper-based relics was constructed, and this method was used to evaluate the acidity of actual paper-based relics. Obviously, for a given paper sample, since both free protons and bound protons can be determined by this method, the acidity measured by this method is more reasonable than that by pH meter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Museum cultural relics represent a special material cultural heritage, and modern interpretations of them are needed in current society. Based on the catalogue data of cultural relics published by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, this paper analyzes the continuity and intermittentness of cultural relics in time series by using the method of continuity judgment of cultural relics, analyzes the aggregation and migration of cultural relics in space by using the method of spatial analysis, and then uses cosine similarity to explain the similarity distribution in space and time. The results show that the overall distribution of cultural relics exhibits the characteristics of class aggregation, dynasty aggregation and regional aggregation. From the perspective of a time scale, cultural relics have different "life cycles", displaying continuity, intermittentness, and similarity. From the perspective of a spatial scale, the cultural relic distribution forms a small "cultural communication circle", showing aggregation, migration, and similarity. The temporal and spatial distribution of cultural relics exhibited more similar characteristics among dynasties that were closer together than those that were far away. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The incorporation of photocatalytic nanomaterials into polymer coatings is used to protect stone relics from weathering. However, the photocatalytic nanomaterials might generate excess free radicals to degrade the polymer matrix. In this work, a certain amount of TiO2 nanoparticles were dispersed into Paraloid B72 and applied onto sandstone relics to explore the adverse effects of TiO2 nanoparticles on Paraloid B72 under ultraviolet (UV) irradiation. To fulfill this goal, the effects of TiO2 on pore formation and the structure of Paraloid B72 was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Moreover, the surface chemical composition, pore structure, surface roughness and surface wettability were explored via Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, SEM, optical profilometer and water contact angle measurement under UV irradiation. Results showed that the incorporation of TiO2 nanoparticles prohibited the generation of pores in Paraloid B72 and there were no pores formed when the content of TiO2 exceeded 0.8 wt%. The water contact angle of origin Paraloid B72 and TiO2/Paraloid B72 decreased with the prolonging UV irradiation. Moreover, TiO2 nanoparticles were extracted from the matrix and the pores cannot be detected with the prolonging UV irradiation time under a higher content of TiO2. These research findings might promote the understanding of using photocatalytic nanomaterials in developing stone relics' protective coating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultural meme is the smallest unit constituting a dynasty′s culture, which has the same inheritance and variability as biological genes. Here, based on the name of cultural relics, we extract cultural memes through semantic word segmentation, word frequency statistics, and the synonym merging method, and construct dynasty cultural meme vectors. We analyzed color, auxiliary, texture, shape, and overall networks of five types of model to construct the culture network, using the social network analysis method, and explored the clustering and degrees of centrality characteristics of cultural memes. We then analyzed the similarities and differences among cultures of the dynasties. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) Cultural memes represent different cultural characteristics of dynasties, and the inheritance and differences among dynasties' cultures are closely related to their historical background. (2) Prevalence memes construct the cultural label of dynasties, which can roughly restore the cultural appearance of dynasties through fewer prevalence memes. (3) The use of community detection with a cultural meme network can determine the clustering of dynasties′ cultures, and the degree of centrality further reflects the main cultural characteristics presented by successive dynasties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer-aided classification serves as the basis of virtual cultural relic management and display. The majority of the existing cultural relic classification methods require labelling of the samples of the dataset; however, in practical applications, there is often a lack of category labels of samples or an uneven distribution of samples of different categories. To solve this problem, we propose a 3D cultural relic classification method based on a low dimensional descriptor and unsupervised learning. First, the scale-invariant heat kernel signature (Si-HKS) was computed. The heat kernel signature denotes the heat flow of any two vertices across a 3D shape and the heat diffusion propagation is governed by the heat equation. Secondly, the Bag-of-Words (BoW) mechanism was utilized to transform the Si-HKS descriptor into a low-dimensional feature tensor, named a SiHKS-BoW descriptor that is related to entropy. Finally, we applied an unsupervised learning algorithm, called MKDSIF-FCM, to conduct the classification task. A dataset consisting of 3D models from 41 Tang tri-color Hu terracotta Eures was utilized to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. A series of experiments demonstrated that the SiHKS-BoW descriptor along with the MKDSIF-FCM algorithm showed the best classification accuracy, up to 99.41%, which is a solution for an actual case with the absence of category labels and an uneven distribution of different categories of data. The present work promotes the application of virtual reality in digital projects and enriches the content of digital archaeology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge graph completion can make knowledge graphs more complete, which is a meaningful research topic. However, the existing methods do not make full use of entity semantic information. Another challenge is that a deep model requires large-scale manually labelled data, which greatly increases manual labour. In order to alleviate the scarcity of labelled data in the field of cultural relics and capture the rich semantic information of entities, this paper proposes a model based on the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) with entity-type information for the knowledge graph completion of the Chinese texts of cultural relics. In this work, the knowledge graph completion task is treated as a classification task, while the entities, relations and entity-type information are integrated as a textual sequence, and the Chinese characters are used as a token unit in which input representation is constructed by summing token, segment and position embeddings. A small number of labelled data are used to pre-train the model, and then, a large number of unlabelled data are used to fine-tune the pre-training model. The experiment results show that the BERT-KGC model with entity-type information can enrich the semantics information of the entities to reduce the degree of ambiguity of the entities and relations to some degree and achieve more effective performance than the baselines in triple classification, link prediction and relation prediction tasks using 35% of the labelled data of cultural relics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stains, as one of most common degradations of paper cultural relics, not only affect paintings' appearance, but sometimes even cover the text, patterns, and colors contained in the relics. Virtual restorations based on common red–green–blue images (RGB) which remove the degradations and then fill the lacuna regions with the image's known parts with the inpainting technology could produce a visually plausible result. However, due to the lack of information inside the degradations, they always yield inconsistent structures when stains cover several color materials. To effectively remove the stains and restore the covered original contents of Chinese paintings, a novel method based on Poisson editing is proposed by exploiting the information inside the degradations of selected three feature bands as the auxiliary information to guide the restoration since the selected feature bands captured fewer stains and could expose the covered information. To make the Poisson editing suitable for stain removal, the feature bands were also exploited to search for the optimal patch for the pixels in the stain region, and the searched patch was used to construct the color constraint on the original Poisson editing to ensure the restoration of the original color of paintings. Specifically, this method mainly consists of two steps: feature band selection from hyperspectral data by establishing rules and reconstruction of stain contaminated regions of RGB image with color constrained Poisson editing. Four Chinese paintings ('Fishing', 'Crane and Banana', 'the Hui Nationality Painting', and 'Lotus Pond and Wild Goose') with different color materials were used to test the performance of the proposed method. Visual results show that this method can effectively remove or dilute the stains while restoring a painting's original colors. By comparing values of restored pixels with nonstained pixels (reference of their same color materials), images processed by the proposed method had the lowest average root mean square error (RMSE), normalized absolute error (NAE), and average differences (AD), which indicates that it is an effective method to restore the stains of Chinese paintings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paper-based relics, which are an important part of cultural heritage worldwide, are at risk of imminent damage from various environmental sources. To protect them, the atmospheric pressure plasma polymerization of hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) precursor has been explored on paper-based relics in situ. The macro and micro images taken during this process suggest that the in situ plasma treatment does not change the macro morphology and the micro structure of the treated paper-based relic samples. On the other hand, plasma treatment causes the polymerization of the HMDSO which then produces nanoparticles deposited onto the paper-based relics. These nanoparticles provide good waterproof properties with large static water contact angles and smaller rolling angles, which protect the paper-based relics from water penetration. Moreover, since the nanoparticles are deposited onto the fibers, waterproof fastness is ensured. Also, the examined mechanical properties of the treated and untreated paper-based relics indicate that the atmospheric pressure plasma treatment does not affect the strength of the paper very much. The results in this study show that atmospheric pressure plasma treatment with the use of HMDSO precursor is a good method to preserve paper-based relics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some of the earliest South Asian Buddhist historical records pertain to the enshrinement of relics, some of which were linked to the Buddha and others associated with prominent monastic teachers and their pupils. Who were the people primarily responsible for these enshrinements? How did the social status of these people represent Buddhism as a burgeoning institution? This paper utilizes early Prakrit inscriptions from India and Sri Lanka to reconsider who was interested in enshrining these relics and what, if any, connection they made have had with each other. Traditional accounts of reliquary enshrinement suggest that king Aśoka began the enterprise of setting up the Buddha's corporeal body for worship but his own inscriptions cast doubt as to the importance he may have placed in the construction of stūpa-s and the widespread distribution of relics. Instead, as evidenced in epigraphy, inclusive corporations of individuals may have instigated, or, at the very least, became the torchbearers for, reliquary enshrinement as a salvific enterprise. Such corporations comprised of monastics as well as non-monastics and seemed to increasingly become more managerial over time. Eventually, culminating at places like Sanchi, the enshrinement of the corporeal remains of regionally famous monks partially supplanted the corporeal remains of the Buddha. Those interested in funding this new endeavor were corporations of relatives, monastic brethren, and others who were likely friends and immediate acquaintances. In the end, the social and corporate collectivity of early Buddhism may have outshined some textual monastic ideals of social isolation as it pertained to the planning, carrying out, and physical enshrinement of corporeal remains for worship, thus evoking an inclusive sentiment with the monastic institution rather than disassociation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hyperspectral images can highlight crop marks in vegetated areas, which may indicate the presence of underground buried structures, by exploiting the spectral information conveyed in reflected solar radiation. In recent years, different vegetation indices and several other image features have been used, with varying success, to improve the interpretation of remotely sensed images for archaeological research. However, it is difficult to assess the derived maps quantitatively and select the most meaningful one for a given task, in particular for a non-specialist in image processing. This paper estimates for the first time objectively the suitability of maps derived from spectral features for the detection of buried archaeological structures in vegetated areas based on information theory. This is achieved by computing the statistical dependence between the extracted features and a digital map indicating the presence of buried structures using information theoretical notions. Based on the obtained scores on known targets, the features can be ranked and the most suitable can be chosen to aid in the discovery of previously undetected crop marks in the area under similar conditions. Three case studies are reported: the Roman buried remains of Carnuntum (Austria), the underground structures of Selinunte in the South of Italy, and the buried street relics of Pherai (Velestino) in central Greece. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]