TY - CHAP A1 - Ghigo, Tea A1 - Rabin, Ira ED - Buzi, P. T1 - Detecting Early Medieval Coptic literature in Dayr Al-Anba Maqar, Between textual conservation and literary rearrangement: The case of Vat. Copt. 57 T2 - Studi e Testi 553 N2 - The study of the VAt.Copt. 57 at the Vatican Library. Codicological, palaeographical, textual and archaeometrical considerations. KW - Coptic KW - Archaeometry KW - Ink KW - Manuscripts PY - 2019 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-494004 SN - 978-88-210-1025-5 SP - 77 EP - 83 PB - Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana AN - OPUS4-49400 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Ghigo, Tea A1 - Rabin, Ira A1 - Buzi, Paola T1 - Archaeometric analysis of Egyptian inks from Late Antiquity N2 - Presentation of the results obtained on a corpus of Egyptian papyri from Late Antiquity T2 - Research Showcase: studying Greco-Roman Egypt CY - University of Basel, Switzerland DA - 26.09.2019 KW - Ink KW - Archaeometry KW - Manuscripts KW - Coptic PY - 2019 AN - OPUS4-49969 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Ghigo, Tea A1 - Rabin, Ira A1 - Buzi, Paola T1 - Archaeometric analisis of Egyptian inks from Late Antiquity N2 - Archaeometric analisis of Egyptian inks from Late Antiquity: presentation of the results obtaine on a curpus of literary and documentary manuscripts. T2 - International congress of papyrology CY - Lecce, Italy DA - 28.07.2019 KW - Coptic KW - Archaeometry KW - Ink KW - Manuscripts PY - 2019 AN - OPUS4-49971 LA - eng 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 T2 - Proceedings of the 28th Congress of Papyrology, Barcelona 1-6 August 2016 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 - CONF A1 - Rabin, Ira A1 - Hahn, Oliver A1 - Kaska, K. ED - Uhlirz, T1 - Why Do We Need to Study Inks? T2 - CHTN 23, 2018 proceedings 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 - CONF A1 - Cohen, Zina A1 - Schlanger, J. A1 - Hahn, Oliver A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - Cairo Genizah documents of the 11th century: analysis of writing materials N2 - The Cairo Geniza is an “archive” discovered in the 19th century in Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, a district in Old Cairo (Egypt). The collection of mostly Jewish documents that vary in genres, languages and writing supports contains a large number of early medieval Hebrew manuscripts. The Geniza provides sources for the literary, linguistic, historical studies of the various aspects Jewish life. As the documents attest, at least two Jewish communities co-existed in Fustat up to 11th century: a so-called Babylonian and Palestinian. These communities had different leaders, different traditions and lived independently. The differences seem to manifest themselves also in the paleographical, codicological and some material properties of the manuscripts produced by each community. The aim of this project is to compare the inks used in the Jewish documents depending on different variables: support (paper, parchment), purpose of the manuscript (legal, private, religious), provenance of the scribe. For the determination of the inks type and composition we had to choose non-invasive, non-destructive and portable techniques to analyze the corpus directly on-situ. The analyses were carried out with a micro-X-ray spectrometer ArtTAX® (Bruker GmbH) and a digital stereomicroscope features built-in LED illumination at 395 nm and 940nm, Dino Lite. We would like to stress that though the methods of material analysis listed above have been successfully employed in the field of cultural heritage and conservation including ancient and medieval manuscripts they have not yet been used to study fragments from the Cairo Genizah. Therefore, we believe that this research project is a pioneering study that will provide new insights into the history of Hebrew writing materials, their production techniques and materials and, thus, contribute new data to the field of Hebrew paleography. T2 - Konferenz Art&Archaeology2018 – 3rd International Conference CY - Jerusalem, Israel DA - 09.12.2018 KW - XRF KW - Ink KW - Manuscripts KW - Cairo Genizah KW - Reflectography PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-47100 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Cohen, Zina A1 - Bonnerot, Olivier A1 - Schlanger, J. A1 - Hahn, Oliver A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - Composition analysis of writing materials in Geniza fragments N2 - The Cairo Geniza is an “archive” discovered in the 19th century in Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, a district in Old Cairo (Egypt), located south of the center of modern Cairo. The giant collection of mostly Jewish documents that vary in genres, languages and writing supports contains a large number of early medieval Hebrew manuscripts, mostly in fragmentary form. The larger part of the Cairo Geniza is stored today in the Cambridge University Library (CUL). The Geniza provides sources for the literary, linguistic, historical studies of the various aspects Jewish life. As the documents attest, at least two Jewish communities co-existed in Fustat up to 11th century: a so-called Babylonian and Palestinian. These communities had different leaders, different traditions and lived independently. The differences seem to manifest themselves also in the paleographical, codicological and some material properties of the manuscripts produced by each community. The aim of this project is to compare the inks used in the Jewish documents depending on different variables: support (paper, parchment), purpose of the manuscript (legal, private, religious), provenance of the scribe. For the determination of the inks type and composition we had to choose non-invasive, non-destructive and portable techniques to analyse the corpus directly in the CUL. The analyses were carried out with a mobile energy dispersive micro-X-ray spectrometer ArtTAX® (Bruker GmbH, Berlin, Germany), which consists of an air-cooled, low-power molybdenum tube, polycapillary X-ray optics (measuring spot size 70 µm in diameter), an electrothermally cooled Xflash detector, and a CCD camera for sample positioning (Bronk et al 2001, Hahn et al. 2010). All measurements are executed using a 30 W low-power Mo tube, 50 kV, 600 µA Mo tube, and with an acquisition time of 15 s (live time) to minimize the risk of damage (Fig. 1, 2). Fig. 1: XRF spectrometer probe above a manuscript fragment Fig. 2: Typical element profile of a XRF linescan The Dino Lite digital stereomicroscope (Fig. 3) features built-in LED illumination at 395 nm and 940 nm and a customized external white light source. During use, the microscope is fastened to a small tripod or mounted on a Plexiglas ring holder that incorporates a white light source. Fig. 3: Dino Lite digital stereomicroscope Fig. 4: Details of one fragment (T-S 16.124) observed with the Dino microscope (x20). On the left, when illuminated with NIR (Near-Infrared, 940 nm) light, the ink fades, indicating iron-gall ink. On the right, the image under NIR light does not change. It is carbon ink. On example of these studies is the manuscript T-S 16.124 (Cambridge University Library, Fig. 5) whom belongs to the third corpus. It is a deed, written in Hebrew, dated from 1328 (= 1017 CE) and witnessed by a very high number of people (6) comparing to the standard of similar documents (between 2 and 3), from at least two different Jewish communities in Fustat (trans congregational). The verso is written in Arabic (Bareket 1999). Fig. 5: Manuscript T-S 16.124 (Cambridge University Library) To compare the inks, we used the fingerprint model. This method relies on the determination of characteristic elemental compositions and represents the amount of a minor constituent relative to the main component, iron in iron gall ink (Malzer et al. 2004, Hahn et al. 2004, Rabin et al 2014). However, a calculation of a fingerprint based on XRF measurements is not possible in the case of carbon ink since carbon, its main component, cannot be detected with this technique. Fig. 6: Ink fingerprint T-S 16-124 (recto) normalized to iron (Fe) Conclusion We show that using reflectography and XRF analysis it is possible to sort the inks according to their type. In the case of the iron-gall inks, use of the ink fingerprint, i.e. amount of the vitriol components normalized to iron we can make direct comparisons of the ink composition. We would like also to stress that though the methods of material analysis listed above have been successfully employed in the field of cultural heritage and conservation including ancient and medieval manuscripts they have not yet been used to study fragments from the Cairo Genizah. Therefore, we believe that this research project is a pioneering study that will provide new insights into the history of Hebrew writing materials, their production techniques and materials and, thus, contribute new data to the field of Hebrew paleography. T2 - Konferenz DESY “Archäometrie und Denkmalpflege 2018” CY - Hamburg, Germany DA - 20.03.2018 KW - Ink KW - XRF Analysis KW - Manuscript PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-46042 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Cohen, Zina A1 - Schlanger, J. A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis of black Medieval Inks: Characterization and Interpretation. Case Study of an 11th century Egyptian Corpus N2 - This study focuses on the analysis of a corpus of manuscripts found in Fustat (medieval Cairo, Egypt) in the biggest medieval “archive” found until now: the Cairo Geniza. The giant collection of mostly Jewish documents has been attracting scholars’ attention a lot but so far, the material aspects of these documents seem to have been mainly neglected. Application of scientific methods of analysis, especially X-Ray fluorescence characterization, contributes to our understanding of the materials used for production of manuscripts during the Middle ages. Our corpus of the 11th century manuscripts comprises manuscripts written by scribes belonging to three Jewish communities that co-existed in Cairo during this period: the Karaites, the so-called Jerusalemites (or Palestinian) and the so-called Babylonians (or Iraqi), three different communities with different traditions and different leaders. The differences manifest themselves also in the paleographical properties of the manuscripts produced within each community. Can we extend the differences detected by the paleographical analysis to differences in composition of the writing materials and especially the composition of the inks? Or can we relate the differences in the composition to the manuscript type (legal, private...), or to another criterion. In this presentation, we offer answers to some of the questions using statistical analysis of the measurements results. T2 - Konferenz Natural Sciences and Technology in Manuscript Analysis CY - Hamburg, Germany DA - 13.06.2018 KW - Ink KW - Manuscript KW - XRF analysis PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-46044 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Cohen, Zina A1 - Schlanger, J. A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - Writing materials analysis of 11th century Cairo Genizah's fragments N2 - This study focuses on the analysis of a corpus of manuscripts found in Fustat (medieval Cairo, Egypt) in the biggest medieval “archive” found until now: the Cairo Geniza. The giant collection of mostly Jewish documents has been attracting scholars’ attention a lot but so far, the material aspects of these documents seem to have been mainly neglected. Application of scientific methods of analysis, especially X-Ray fluorescence characterization, contributes to our understanding of the materials used for production of manuscripts during the Middle ages. Our corpus of the 11th century manuscripts comprises manuscripts written by scribes belonging to three Jewish communities that co-existed in Cairo during this period: the Karaites, the so-called Jerusalemites (or Palestinian) and the so-called Babylonians (or Iraqi), three different communities with different traditions and different leaders. The differences manifest themselves also in the paleographical properties of the manuscripts produced within each community. Can we extend the differences detected by the paleographical analysis to differences in composition of the writing materials and especially the composition of the inks? Or can we relate the differences in the composition to the manuscript type (legal, private...), or to another criterion. In this presentation, we offer answers to some of the questions using statistical analysis of the measurements results. T2 - Konferenz 6th Meeting “X-ray and other techniques in investigations of the objects of cultural heritage” CY - Cracow, Poland DA - 17.05.2018 KW - Ink KW - Manuscript KW - XRF analysis PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-46045 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Ghigo, Tea A1 - Steger, Simon A1 - Bonnerot, Olivier A1 - Hahn, Oliver A1 - Buzi, P. A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - Understanding the technological evolution of writing materials. Scientific systematic study of inks from Coptic manuscripts 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: XRF, FTIR, and Raman. In most cases, we can obtain satisfactory results using a non-invasive protocol. However, mixed inks that contain no metals evade such a protocol. These inks constitute a heterogeneous group of media used especially in the Middle East and the Islamicate world since at least the 10th century; they are characterized by blending carbon ink and tannins, with or without the addition of vitriol. Our own research aims primarily at recreating a socio-geographic history of inks, parchment, and papyrus and includes the comparative analysis of the writing materials of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ink and papyrus in Ancient and Hellenistic Egypt, and inks in documents from various contemporary medieval communities in Fustat (first nucleus of Cairo). During many years of study, we concluded that the continuous production of Coptic manuscripts from late Antiquity to the Middle Ages offers a unique opportunity for historical study of the ink in a large geographic area. Thanks to the collaboration with the ERC project “PAThs” (www.paths.uniroma1.it), based at the University of Rome La Sapienza, and within the activities of a PhD research dedicated to this topic, we therefore created a new branch of our project focused entirely on the analysis of Coptic inks, pigments, and dyes. This pioneering systematic study of writing materials coming from a specific area and time frame (5th-10th century) aims not only at a better understanding of the complex Coptic multicultural and plurilingual society, but also and mainly at clarifying the links among the Coptic and other societies between the ancient and medieval eras. Finally, it will cast light on the history of the technological development of inks in the eastern world, from Antiquity to the middle ages. T2 - Konferenz: Scientific Methods in Cultural Heritage Research, Gordon Research Conference CY - Castelldefels, Spain DA - 22.07.2018 KW - Coptic KW - Ink KW - Manuscript PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-46024 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -