TY - JOUR A1 - Bonnerot, Olivier A1 - Del Mastro, G. A1 - Hammerstaedt, J. A1 - Mocella, V. A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - XRF ink Analysis of some Herculaneum papyri N2 - Recent research has suggested that some of the inks used in Herculaneum papyri do not consist of pure carbon. Starting from this finding, in June 2018 a preliminary campaign of analysis by means of X-Ray fluorescence (XRF) of external portions removed mechanically from their original rolls in the eighteenth century (the so-called scorze) took place at the Biblioteca Nazionale at Naples. Also in this case, the aim of the survey was to investigate the ink composition in order to detect possible traces of metal. This article sums up the results of this survey. KW - Herculaneum papyri KW - Ink KW - XRF PY - 2020 SP - 50 EP - 52 AN - OPUS4-51193 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Bonnerot, Olivier A1 - Del Mastro, G. A1 - Hammerstaedt, J. A1 - Mocella, V. A1 - Rabin, Ira ED - Capasso, M. ED - Davoli, P. ED - Pellé, N. T1 - XRF Ink Analysis of Selected Fragments from the Herculaneum Collection of the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli N2 - Hundreds of papyrus rolls, carbonized during the 79CE eruption of Mount Vesuvius, were discovered in 1754 at Herculaneum. Sophisticated mechanical methods for unrolling the best-preserved scrolls have been applied, with varying success. However, such processes have been abandoned, to prevent risk from irremediable damage or loss and to preserve the integrity of the extremely fragile rolls. Following the development of X-ray based non-invasive techniques, attempts to virtually unroll the scrolls were made. The most common ink in Antiquity was carbon-based, and the main element of carbonized papyrus is carbon, making these investigations difficult. However, some attempts with synchrotron X-ray phase-contrast tomography (XPCT) were successful. Recently, the identification of antique inks containing metals raised hope that if some of the inks contain metal the rolls can be virtually unrolled using conventional CT- technique. We investigated the inks of a selection of partially unrolled fragments stored at the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli with X-ray fluorescence in order to select the best candidates for tomography. Despite the many difficulties (analysis of several layers sticking together, letters barely visible, difficulty to separate contribution from the ink and from the papyrus, inhomogeneity of the support, fragility of the fragments…), encouraging results were found, with a number of inks from Greek fragments found to contain additions to the soot (Fe, Pb, Cu P). KW - XRF KW - ink KW - Herculaneum KW - papyrus PY - 2022 UR - http://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/29th_ICP/issue/view/1881 SN - 978-88-8305-177-7 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1285/i99788883051760 SP - 200 EP - 213 PB - Centro di Studi Papirologici dell’Università del Salento CY - Lecce AN - OPUS4-54756 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Rabin, Ira ED - Ciner, P. ED - Nunez, A. T1 - Writing Materials of the Dead See Scrolls N2 - The first manuscripts from the Qumran caves were found in 1947. Within the following 10 years, clandestine and legal excavations revealed some 900 highly fragmented manuscripts from the late Second Temple period. This collection is generally known as Scrolls of the Judea Desert or Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). For many years after their discovery, text analysis and fragmeents attribution were the main concern of the scholars dealing with the scrolls. The uncertain archaeological provenance of the larger part of the collection added an additional difficulty to the formidable task of sorting some 19000 fragments. After 60 years of scholar research the question of origin, archaeological provenance and correct attribution of the fragmenst are still hotly debated. To dtermine a possible contribution to the debate from the point of view of writing materials, we used otpical and electron microscopy, various X-ray based techniques as well as vibratiional sprectroscopy. We validated our approach with SY - based studies using the advantages of the synchroton radiation source with respect to the benchtop devices. Our laboratory studies showed that often production and storage locality could be distinguished thenks to the specific residues ("fingerprint") they left on the material. Moreover, we have diescovered that diferrent parchment production processses coexisted in the antiquity, and the resulting writing materials can readily be distinguished. T2 - 2nd International Conference on Patristic Studies CY - San Juan, Argentina DA - 28.03.2017 KW - Dead Sea Scrolls KW - Text analysis KW - Fragmented manuscripts KW - X-ray based techniques KW - Archaeological provenance PY - 2021 SN - 978-2-503-59149-0 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1484/M.STR-EB.5.1211558 SN - 2566-073X VL - 0095/ 19 SP - 325 EP - 331 PB - Brepols CY - Turnhout, Belgium AN - OPUS4-54593 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 - CONF A1 - Rabin, Ira A1 - Hahn, Oliver A1 - Kaska, K. ED - Uhlirz, T1 - Why Do We Need to Study Inks? N2 - While studying the socio-geographic history of inks, division 4.5 (Analysis of cultural artefacts and assets) of the BAM (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung) in Berlin together with the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures in Hamburg has developed a protocol for ink analysis. It consists of a primary screening to determine the type of the ink, and a subsequent in-depth analysis using several spectroscopic techniques. Using this protocol, scientists can assist scholars in addressing a rather broad range of historical questions that cannot be answered unequivocally through scholarly research alone. Among these are investigations on collaboration between scribes and scriptoria, on the usage and annotation of manuscripts and on their path through time and space in general. This research can thus help to reconstruct the circumstances of the production of written heritage as well as their history and transmission. To facilitate the dialogue between the scholars and the scientists a simple optical tool was developed to allow the scholars to perform preliminary ink analysis required for formulation of the question that in turn can be answered by scientific in-depth investigations. In this paper, ink types and their identification method is accompanied by examples of the recent work conducted on parchment manuscripts in the Austrian National Library. T2 - Congress Visual Heritage, CHNT 23 CY - Vienna, Austria DA - 15.12.2018 KW - Ink KW - Parchment PY - 2020 SP - 1.1 EP - 1.9 CY - Wien AN - OPUS4-50242 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 - Rabin, Ira ED - D'Angelo, M. ED - Essler, H. ED - Nikolardi, F. T1 - Tracing the same Path T1 - Tradizione e innovazione nella papirologia ercolanese tra Germania e Italia T1 - Tradition und Fortschritt in der herkulanischen Papyrologie zwischen Deutschland und Italien N2 - While studying the socio-geographic history of inks, division 4.5 of the BAM (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und Prüfung) together with the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures in Hamburg has developed a protocol for ink analysis. It consists of a primary screening to determine the type of the ink, and a subsequent in-depth analysis using several spectroscopic techniques. The XRF elemental analysis aims primarily at identifying and characterizing metallic components of inks. Besides the instrumental methods, the paper presents an overview of historic inks in the period of transition from carbon inks of the Antiquity to iron-gall inks commonly used in the Middle Ages. KW - Carbon ink KW - Mixed ink KW - Iron-gall ink KW - Instrumental analysis of ink KW - Optical properties of ink PY - 2021 SN - 0391-1535 VL - 2021 IS - 228 SP - 175 EP - 180 PB - Centro Internazionale per lo Studio dei Papiri Ercolanesi ‘Marcello Gigante’ CY - Napoli, Italy AN - OPUS4-53975 LA - ita AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Rabin, Ira A1 - Krutzsch, M. T1 - The Writing Surface Papyrus and its Materials N2 - Our experimental knowledge about the inks of antiquity and late antiquity rarely goes beyond their visual description. In rare cases, inks typology has been determined by means of microscopy and reflectography, i.e. using their physical and optical properties, respectively. Since carbon, plant and iron gall inks belong to different classes of compounds they could be easily distinguished had only pure inks been used. Even these crude observations suggest that the inks used differed greatly in their composition. Reconstruction of the ink recipes with the help of advanced non-destructive analytical techniques could serve as a powerful accessory for in the studies of ancient papyri. The proposed paper will present a short survey of the methods of material analysis and the challenges offered by ancient inks. The examples of the ink studies from the collections of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and Egyptian Museum in Berlin will conclude the paper. T2 - 28th Congress of Papyrology CY - Barcelona, Spain DA - 01.08.2016 KW - Papyrus KW - Ink PY - 2019 SP - 773 EP - 781 AN - OPUS4-49532 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schütz, R. A1 - Maragh, J. A1 - Weaver, J. A1 - Rabin, Ira A1 - Masic, A. T1 - The Temple Scroll: Reconstructing an ancient manufacturing practice N2 - The miraculously preserved 2000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient texts of invaluable historical significance, were discovered in the mid-20th century in the caves of the Judean desert. The texts were mainly written on parchment and exhibit vast diversity in their states of preservation. One particular scroll, the 8-m-long Temple Scroll is especially notable because of its exceptional thinness and bright ivory color. The parchment has a layered structure, consisting of a collagenous base material and an atypical inorganic overlayer. We analyzed the chemistry of the inorganic layer using x-ray and Raman spectroscopies and discovered a variety of evaporitic sulfate salts. This points toward a unique ancient production technology in which the parchment was modified through the addition of the inorganic layer as a writing surface. Furthermore, understanding the properties of these minerals is particularly critical for the development of suitable conservation methods for the preservation of these invaluable historical documents. KW - Temple Scroll KW - Dead Sea Scrolls PY - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-495314 VL - 5 IS - 9 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - AAAS AN - OPUS4-49531 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Rabin, Ira A1 - Caldararo, N. A1 - Rimon, H. ED - Russel, R.E. ED - Lange, A. T1 - The Role of DNA Analysis in the Study of the Biblical Manuscripts N2 - Interest in the type of skin used in scriptural materials and preparation methods increased from the nineteenth into the twentieth century. This was due partly to the number of newly discovered fragments and to the invention of new instruments and scientific procedures to identify animal skins and produce qualitative means to demonstrate specific preparation reagents and techniques. The invention of various means of analyzing the DNA of organic materials brought about a revolution in archaeology and in conservation. Difficulties in overcoming contamination of archaeological samples resulted in a number of controversies but also produced advances and improvement in the techniques of ancient DNA analysis and interpretation of results. KW - DNA KW - Dead Sea Scrolls KW - Parchment PY - 2023 SN - 2468-3027 VL - 3D SP - 120 EP - 123 PB - Brill CY - Leiden / Boston AN - OPUS4-58914 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -