TY - JOUR A1 - Nehring, Grzegorz A1 - Gordon, Nehemia A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - Distinguishing between seemingly identical inks using scanning μXRF and heat maps N2 - This study will present a new approach to distinguishing writing inks that have the same elemental compositions and visual appearances. The approach is based on displaying the intensity of elemental distributions as heat maps that represent data recorded with a scanning μX-ray fluorescence spectrometer. The heat maps present the data so as to facilitate digitally identifying and distinguishing between inks used to produce, correct, and reink two medieval Torah scrolls. As ritual objects, Torah scrolls had to be written in accordance with exacting standards that evolved over time. This requirement led to successive stages of modifications, sometimes over centuries. Both vitriolic and non-vitriolic inks used to modify Torah scrolls can be visually identical to each other. Furthermore, different non-vitriolic inks usually have an identical elemental composition. The solid material analysis evidence and its presentation as heat maps made it possible to discriminate between original and altered portions of text that in some cases would have been impossible. Our interdisciplinary work brought together conservation, material science, paleog-raphy, and philology to enable the identification of complex stratigraphy in multiple stages of production, correction, and reinking. ©2 0 2 2 Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. KW - Spectroscopy KW - Scanning micro-X-ray fluorescence KW - Vitriolic iron-gall inks KW - Non-vitriolic iron-gall inks KW - Heat maps KW - Torah scrolls KW - Scribal corrections PY - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-557271 SN - 1296-2074 VL - 57 SP - 142 EP - 148 PB - Elsevier Masson SAS AN - OPUS4-55727 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Nehring, Grzegorz A1 - Girard, Solène A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - Conservation and Technical Evaluation of an Early Medieval Papyrus Codex N2 - In 2005, a team of Polish archaeologists discovered three Coptic codices, two on papyrus and one on parchment, in the rubbish dump of a hermitage at Sheik Abd el-Gurna, Egypt. While the parchment codex and the remains of the bindings of the papyrus ones have been conserved, the text blocks of the papyrus codices were opened and disassembled and after being disinfected remained untouched for nearly 15 years, until the current project started. Currently, all three books are stored in the collection of the Coptic Museum in Cairo. Our team undertook the conservation of and archaeometric research on the papyrus codices. The first of the books contains the Canons of Pseudo-Basil, while the second is an Encomium of St. Pisenthios. Both codices have been palaeographically dated to the seventh-eighth centuries CE. In this paper, we describe our project and present the results of the work carried out on the Canons of Pseudo-Basil. Our work involved photography in transmitted light, measurements of the thickness of the papyrus leaves, and digital microscopy under three-light illumination. These measurements allowed us to determine the types of the inks and characterize the papyrus writing substrate. For conservation, we used a novel method developed in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin that comprises suspending papyrus folios on a translucent, extremely thin Japanese paper inside glass frames without the use of adhesives.In 2005, a team of Polish archaeologists discovered three Coptic codices, two on papyrus and one on parchment, in the rubbish dump of a hermitage at Sheik Abd el-Gurna, Egypt. While the parchment codex and the remains of the bindings of the papyrus ones have been conserved, the text blocks of the papyrus codices were opened and disassembled and after being disinfected remained untouched for nearly 15 years, until the current project started. Currently, all three books are stored in the collection of the Coptic Museum in Cairo. Our team undertook the conservation of and archaeometric research on the papyrus codices. The first of the books contains the Canons of Pseudo-Basil, while the second is an Encomium of St. Pisenthios. Both codices have been palaeographically dated to the seventh-eighth centuries CE. In this paper, we describe our project and present the results of the work carried out on the Canons of Pseudo-Basil. Our work involved photography in transmitted light, measurements of the thickness of the papyrus leaves, and digital microscopy under three-light illumination. These measurements allowed us to determine the types of the inks and characterize the papyrus writing substrate. For conservation, we used a novel method developed in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin that comprises suspending papyrus folios on a translucent, extremely thin Japanese paper inside glass frames without the use of adhesives. KW - Papyrus KW - Codex KW - Conservation KW - Iron gall ink KW - Coptic PY - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-570998 SN - 0039-3630 SP - 1 EP - 12 PB - Taylor & Francis AN - OPUS4-57099 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Nehring, Grzegorz A1 - Bonnerot, Olivier A1 - Gordon, N. A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - Writing and Correcting a Torah Scroll in Germany of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries N2 - Scientific material analysis of the elemental composition of inks from different strata of a manuscript has the potential to complement scholarly observations using palaeography and philology in reconstructing the history of the manuscript’s production, correction and repair. There are three typologically different classes of black writing inks: soot inks consist of carbon particles. KW - Manuscript studies KW - Hebrew studies KW - Ink analysis PY - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-540658 VL - Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies Bulletin 7, 2021 IS - 7 SP - 2 EP - 20 PB - Centre for the study of manuscript cultures CY - Hamburg AN - OPUS4-54065 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Nehring, Grzegorz A1 - Bonnerot, Olivier A1 - Gerhardt, M. A1 - Krutzsch, M. A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - Looking for the missing link in the evolution of black inks N2 - In the transition from carbon to iron-gall inks, the two documents from the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection in Berlin with shelfmarks P 13500 and P 13501 discussed in this work present an important case. Their inks appear brownish, although they date back to the fourth and third century BCE, when carbon inks are believed to have been commonly if not exclusively used. Using imaging micro-X-ray fluorescence and infrared reflectography, we discovered that the inks in both documents contain a significant amount of copper in addition to carbon. Comparing the extant recipes for black writing inks and the experimental evidence, we suggest that these inks are a transition between the pure carbon and the iron-gall inks. Such inks may have been quite common before the production of iron-gall ink was clearly understood and established. KW - Black writing ink KW - Hellenistic KW - Papyrus KW - XRF imaging KW - NIR imaging PY - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-523708 VL - 13 IS - 4 SP - Article 71 PB - Springer AN - OPUS4-52370 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Nehring, Grzegorz A1 - Pronobis-Gajdzis, M. A1 - Targowski, P. A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - What should we take into an account in the characterization of iron-gall ink by means of X-ray fluorescence? N2 - The earliest known recipes for iron gall inks include four basic ingredients: oak galls – pathological growths of oak leaves; metal salts – usually referred to as vitriol; a binder such as gum Arabic; and water. The final product differs in the elemental composition due to the multitude of recipes as well as differences within the composition of the ink’s ingredients. Nowadays, based on the qualitative and semi-quantitative evaluation of X-ray fluorescence data, it is possible to distinguish inks on the basis of the so-called fingerprint model. The first goal of our study was to determine to what extent the type of XRF spectrometer affects the quality of the ink evaluation. We tested two types of spectrometers, semi-stationary machines equipped with polycapillary focusing optics and a handheld spectrometer with a diaphragm collimator and a relatively big interaction spot. The second goal was to address the issue of whether the ink composition might be affected by storage in a metal container. The presentation will discuss the role of the spectrometer type in the evaluation of a thin layer material such as ink. We have also learned that the iron-gall ink composition might depend on the type of vessel in which ink was being stored. T2 - Konferenz - XIV IADA Congress - Warsaw 2019 CY - Warsaw, Poland DA - 23.09.2019 KW - Iron-gall ink KW - XRF KW - Inkwells KW - Ink composition PY - 2019 AN - OPUS4-49149 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Nehring, Grzegorz A1 - Targowski, P. A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - Can an inkwell leak into ink? N2 - X-ray fluorescence analysis, due to its non-destructive nature and ist suitability to work with historic objects in situ, quickly became one of the most important methods for the evaluation of iron-gall ink. The main advantage of this qualitative and semi-quantitative method is that it makes it easy to differentiate between inks, based on the assumption that the differences result from the manufacture of the ink. This work explores the question whether the ink ‘fingerprint’ results strictly from the elemental composition of the basic ink ingredients even if it is stored in vessels made of metals or metal alloys. In addition, we tested and compared the performance of three different XRF spectrometers. We prepared various lab-grade inks according to historical ink recipes and measured the metal content of the ink deposited on sized cotton Linters paper with three types of XRF spectrometers: a simple hand-held device with an interaction spot of 4 mm and two devices equipped with poly-capillary Xray optics for line scanning and imaging. Since the exact elemental mass composition of the non-aged ink samples was known, we were able to evaluate the accuracy of the research procedure. Lab-grade inks were then aged in the metal jars imitating inkwells. The aging of the inks in the metal containers resulted in the significant change of the primary inks fingerprint as opposed to that of the control inks stored in glass containers. This effect was independently confirmed by the measurements conducted with every instrument we used. We will present a brief comparison of the results 43 achieved when using different spectrometers and a possible hypothesis explaining the processes that occurred. T2 - Konferenz -7th Meeting X-ray and other techniques in investigations of the objects of cultural heritage CY - Krakow, Poland DA - 17.05.2018 KW - Iron-gall ink KW - XRF KW - Inkwells KW - Ink composition KW - Performance comparison PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-49157 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Nehring, Grzegorz A1 - Hahn, Oliver A1 - Shevchuk, Ivan A1 - Huskin, Kyle A1 - Cohen, Zina A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - Breaking the limits of the non-destructive instrumental analysis of writing inks N2 - The ink analysis protocol developed through cooperation between the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung in Berlin and the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at the University of Hamburg involves the use of imaging techniques for ink screening, followed by spectroscopic analysis. In our presentation, we will begin by briefly reviewing the history of writing inks and discussing the three main categories: carbon-based inks, plant, and iron-gall inks. We will address their chronology, precursors, and mixed forms, as well as the features that allow for their identification. Then, we will present the techniques we use in ink analysis, whereby we would like to highlight the limitations, advantages, and disadvantages of each approach. Finally, we will discuss the new mass-spectrometric method based on micro-sampling and using atmospheric solid analysis probe (ASAP). T2 - Future of the Past CY - Torun, Poland DA - 14.06.2023 KW - Ink analyses KW - Spectroscopy KW - Mass spectroscopy PY - 2023 AN - OPUS4-58882 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Grzegorz, Nehring A1 - Krutzsch, M. A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - Tuschenanalyse im P 11702 T1 - Ink Analysis in P 11702 N2 - Near-inframed reflectography and imaging X-Ray flourescence analysis reveal that carbon inks of two different compositions were used in the papyrus manuscript Berlin P 11702. in contrast with the writing ink, one of the carbon drawing inks contained a significant addition of iron. This result emphasises the need for routine instrumental ink analysis. KW - Papyrus KW - Ink analysis KW - X-Ray flourescence spectroscopy KW - Near-infrared refelctography PY - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/apf-2021-0026 SN - 1867-1551 VL - 67 IS - 2 SP - 277 EP - 282 PB - De Gruyter AN - OPUS4-53942 LA - deu AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Berkes, L. A1 - Nehring, Grzegorz A1 - Bonnerot, O. A1 - Krutzsch, M. A1 - Rabin, Ira A1 - Richter, T. S. T1 - Mixed Inks in Two Coptic Documents from the Hermopolite Region Relating to Lease Business N2 - In this article, we present two Coptic papyri, P 11934 and P 11935 from the Berlin collection excavated in Ashmunein (ancient Hermopolis) by Otto Rubensohn in 1906. We employ a multi-disciplinary approach that takes into account both their materiality – writing support as well as ink – and their content, as has become ‘best practice’. 1 Material aspects of written documents have traditionally been the purview of papyrologists. Recently developed methods of scientific analysis generate sets of archaeometric data with the potential to improve understanding of the materiality of ancient document production, as well as to yield new evidence for genuine papyrological research questions. To achieve this, a large corpus of comparative data needs to be built. Our contribution offers a first step in this direction. We aim at presenting the papyri, which were selected because of the ink corrosion during conservation work at the Berlin collection, in a format that is exhaustive both for material and textual aspects. The inks from both papyri were analysed using a combination of techniques, contributing to our better understanding of the development of ink technology in Late Antiquity. KW - Coptic papyri KW - Methods of scientific analysis KW - Sets of archaeometric data KW - Mixed Inks KW - Ink corrosion KW - Ancient document production PY - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-579948 SN - 2751-4722 VL - 2023/3 IS - 3 SP - 1 EP - 18 PB - Ceative Commons Attribution ShareAlike CY - Heidelberg, Germany AN - OPUS4-57994 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -