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Natural sciences play auxiliary role in the studies of manuscripts. The success of their contribution depends strongly on the formulation of the question and the choice of the methods to obtain the requested answer. Therefore, one should try to go beyond the understanding of the basic principles of the scientific analysis.
We will start with a glance at the basic principles of the techniques used in the material science for determination of the elemental composition (X-ray emission) and molecular composition (FTIR & Raman). We will move then to the bench and mobile equipment commonly used in the field of cultural heritage. At the end we will choose a question to be answered and design an ideal experiment that will be modified according to the limitations dictated by on-site conditions.
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 fragments 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 questions of origin, archaeological provenance and correct attribution of the fragments are still hotly debated.
In many cases material characterization of the scroll writing media deliver answers to the questions stated above. Furthermore, issues concerning corrosion pathways, ancient technologies and contemporary conservation activities demand in depth material studies. To obtain a comprehensive picture we use optical and electron microscopy, various X-ray based techniques as well as vibrational spectroscopy. We validated our approach with SY- based studies using the advantages of the synchrotron radiation source with respect to the bench-top devices.
Our laboratory studies showed that often production and storage locality could be distinguished thanks to the specific residues (“fingerprint”) they left on the material. Moreover, we have discovered that different parchment production processes coexisted in the antiquity, and the resulting writing materials can readily be distinguished.
Within our recent studies we tentatively reconstructed the history of the Genesis Apocryphon. Written with a corrosive ink on a tanned parchment, it was found rolled together with an additional layer of non-inscribed non-tanned parchment. Chemical composition of the ink is in agreement with a 1st century AD ink recipe recorded in Materia Medica by a Greek physician, Pedanius Dioscorides. Study of the scroll deterioration as a function of time and exposition to light during the post-discovery period allows us to speculate that the scroll was rather “archived” than hidden in Cave 1. These results confirm the theory of Eliezer Sukenik who believed Cave 1 to be a “geniza”. A similar study of the Temple Scroll, discovered in the cave 11 indicates that the scroll was rather hidden than “archived”.
For many years after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, text analysis and fragment attribution were the main concern of the scholars dealing with them. The uncertain archaeological provenance of a large part of the collection added difficulties to the already formidable task of sorting thousands of fragments. After 60 years of scholarly research the questions of origin, archaeological provenance and correct attribution of the fragments are still debated. To help address these questions we have developed a methodology suitable to the material studies of the scrolls using combinations of X-ray, FTIR and Raman techniques. On the one hand, an accurate characterization of the highly heterogeneous writing media of the Dead Sea Scrolls leads to a reliable reconstruction of their history and, thus, contributes significantly to the current debate. On the other hand, it provides new information on the production of ancient parchment towards the end of the Second Temple period, opening a new page in the historical study of technology.
As part of the Qumran project conducted at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Berlin between 2007 and 2010, my colleagues and I developed a new, integrated methodology for determining the original and acquired properties of highly heterogeneous Dead Sea Scrolls. The purpose of this methodology is to help scholars determine the provenance of fragments of the scrolls and sort and compare them more easily than in the past. Since our measurements allowed us to differentiate between the minerals originating from the production processes and the sediments accrued during storage in the caves in Qumran, we were able to reconstruct the treatment of hides and discovered that at least two distinct parchmentproduction techniques co-existed at the beginning of the common era.
The reconstruction of workmanship on animal hides in Antiquity raised doubts about the validity of the current definition of parchment, which is based on a production technique known from the Middle Ages. We hope that our current work will also help researchers understand the characteristic properties of gewil, qelaf and dukhsustos better.¹
The evolution and socio-geographic distribution of writing inks in late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages are the second focus of our investigative work at BAM.
We use X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF) to determine the chemical composition of inks and NIR reflectography for their typology. We are amply assisted in our ambitious enterprise by codicologists and palaeographers who have adopted our methodology and conduct field studies of their own.
Our current projects focus on the material analysis of the writing materials
kept in the Taylor-Schechter Collection at Cambridge University Library,
which houses the largest collection of Cairo Geniza fragments, about 190,000.
Although Geniza manuscripts have attracted a great deal of scholarly attention,
the material aspects of these documents seem to have been largely neglected.
The current study aims to obtain information on the composition of the writing
supports and the inks that were used, the production of the original manuscripts
and the history of their degradation. The collected data should supplement the
description based on Hebrew palaeography and codicology. Moreover, a characterisation
of the writing materials would provide insights on trade, local production
techniques and social structures. The tabulated results have the potential to
be used as geo-chronological markers if sufficient data is collected.
For our study, we chose Hebrew legal documents and letters from three communities
that co-existed in Fustat (today Cairo) in the 11th century: the Jerusalemite
(or ‘Palestinian’) community, the Babylonian community and the Karaites, three
different communities with different scribal traditions. In addition to this, we
studied non-biblical scrolls attributed to the Palestinian and Babylonian communities.
The question we addressed was whether we can correlate the use of a
specific type of ink to an objective criterion.
For our analysis at Cambridge University Library, we used a number of protocols
developed at BAM (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung) in
Berlin and at the Centre for Study of Manuscript Cultures, University of Hamburg
(CSMC). These include reflectographic examination followed by non-destructive
X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis using transportable instruments so that the
analysis can be carried out in situ.
We have illustrated our approach here by providing two examples. The first one
describes our investigation of the leather fragment containing a portion of the
Babylonian Talmud on its hair side (TS Misc.26.53.17). The second example illustrates
our ability to compare iron-gall inks using the XRF method. In this case,
we explored the question of the codicological attribution of three fragments (TS
F17.4, TS 12.755 and TS 12.756) to the same Talmud manuscript.
The International Qumran project conducted at the BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing in 2007–10 aimed at establishing an optimal methodology for an accurate characterization of the Dead Sea Scrolls to address such questions as archaeological provenance, origin, and attribution of fragments to a specific sheet (Rabin 2013). Using equipment of various degrees of complexity we have shown that part of the historic information stored in the material can be revealed by proper characterization of the material. The on-site investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls fragments from The Schøyen Collection in October 2012 offered the first chance to test this methodology in a field study. For the first time, we used mobile and non-invasive technology exclusively, since we could not transport all of our laboratory equipment to Norway for this project. Moreover, besides the technical limitations dictated by the available equipment, we had to cope with limited time: it was impossible to perform the number of scans required for optimal characterization of over 30 fragments within the fourteen days available. Nevertheless this study presents an important step in the material analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls, since the devices we used are easily transportable, well known, and easily accessible throughout the world.
The international Qumran project coordinated at the BAM, Berlin, resulted in an integrated methodology for determining the original and acquired properties of the skin-based writing surfaces of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This methodology offers a powerful tool for addressing such questions as the provenance, sorting and comparison of manuscripts. In addition, we have developed specific protocols for on-site studies, which were successfully applied to the fragments from the Schøyen collection in Norway. Our studies show that the Dead Sea Scrolls writing surfaces can be divided roughly into three groups: leather, parchments of a light tint, and those of various shades of brown. The latter ones are invariably tanned, whereas the middle group is characterized by the presence of various inorganic salts. Some of the pale parchments, among them the Temple Scroll (11Q19), are remarkably similar to medieval European parchment. Therefore we have formulated the working theory that in the Judaea of the Hellenistic period two different parchment-making traditions existed side by side: an ‘eastern’ one (represented by the tanned parchments of Qumran, closely resembling Aramaic documents from the fifth century BC, and a ‘western’ one (represented by the untanned/lightly tanned ones similar to early Christian Greek parchments).
This division has found support during our first pilot study of the Geniza fragments, in which Babylonian and Palestinian traditions seem to follow the “eastern” and “western” technologies, respectively.
The evolution and socio-geographic distribution of writing inks in late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages build the second focus of the BAM group. We use X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF) to determine the chemical composition of the inks and NIR-reflectography for their typology. Here the early appearance of the metal containing inks clearly belongs to the western tradition as opposed to the continuous use of soot inks in the East.
The lecture will discuss the sensitive issue of authentication of the objects of cultural heritage of immense cultural and monetary value if certified to be genuine. It will be made clear that material analysis alone, especially its non-destructive variety conducted by specialists in a single technique, can not prove that the object is genuine. The best material analysis can do, after all appropriate tests have been conducted, is to announce that nothing has been found that contradicts the assumption of genuineness. Moreover, the results of the natural analysis can never be used as the only justification of the authentication in the cases of composite objects such as manuscripts or epigraphs. A certification always requires the expertise of the specialist in the field (be it a historian, paleographer, epigrapher, etc.), whose judgment can be at the most supported by appropriate material analysis.
The most effective approach for testing suspicious artifacts has been established by the forensic science. Here, not the authentication, but the determination of the forgery stands in the focus of the work. Investigation protocols developed within 150 years and constantly improved include a clear statement of the analysis purpose and the definition of plausibility criteria for the possible outcome. The younger sister of the forensics, archaeometry has to overcome additional obstacles such as the heterogeneity of historic material coupled with the scarcity of suitable reference material. Over the last two decades the popularity of archaeometric studies has increased enormously, with the industry-driven development of so-called non-destructive technologies (NDT) that do not require sampling. Further technological developments led to the appearance of NDT methods with extremely small interaction windows (µm range). Each of these methods has limitations that have to be carefully considered when planning the tests of a heterogeneous and often partially degraded historical material. This approach is inherently multi-instrumental, therefore archaeometric and forensic departments unite a number of specialists who work together defining the tasks and the methods involved for their successful completion.
The 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. Soot, plant, and iron gall inks form different typological classes of historical black writing materials. Soot ink is a fine dispersion of carbon pigments in a water-soluble binding agent; plant-based ink consists of tannin solution; iron gall-ink presents a boundary case between soot and plant ink— a water soluble preliminary stage (similar to inks from the second group) oxidizes and evolves into a black, insoluble material (similar to the carbon pigments of the first group) when the writing is exposed to air. Each ink class has distinct properties that would readily permit their easy differentiation, if only these historical inks always belonged to just one of the classes above. In reality, inks may contain additives that obscure a clear picture.
All the black inks of the DSS have been hitherto identified as soot inks. Yet some manuscripts, with 1QapGen ar among them, display ink corrosion that is incompatible with the pure soot ink. This type of corrosion commonly observed in medieval manuscripts written with iron gall inks, results from the catalytic action of metallic component in the ink. Early analysis of this ink conducted by Nir El and Broshi in 1996 found copper in the corrosive inks and attributed its presence to the use of bronze inkwells. Re-investigation of the 1QapGen ar ink suggests, however, that the ink composition, soot + copper, agrees well with the ink recipe recorded in the 1st century CE by Dioscorides. Similar inks have been already attested on contemporary Egyptian papyri. The first part of the paper is dedicated to the new results on the inks and corrosion pattern of the 1QapGen ar.
In the second part of the presentation I will focus on the luxury scrolls, a distinct codicological type introduced by E. Tov. Our studies show that the preparation of the writing materials cannot supplement the list of codicological criteria offered by Tov. Therefore, one can divorce the writing material production from its inscription in contrast with the medieval scriptoria practices that included parchment production and copying of the manuscripts.
Material study of inks
(2016)
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. Soot, plant, and iron gall inks form different typological classes of historical black writing materials. Soot ink is a fine dispersion of carbon pigments in a water-soluble binding agent; plant-based ink consists of tannin solution; iron gall-ink presents a boundary case between soot and plant ink— a water soluble preliminary stage (similar to inks from the second group) oxidizes and evolves into a black, insoluble material (similar to the carbon pigments of the first group) when the writing is exposed to air. Each ink class has distinct properties that would readily permit their easy differentiation, if only these historical inks always belonged to just one of the classes above. In reality, inks may contain additives that obscure a clear picture.
Even crude observations suggest that the inks of antiquity differed greatly in their composition. We believe, that reconstructing the ink recipes with the help of advanced non-destructive analytical techniques could serve as a powerful accessory 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. (Two) examples of ink studies from the collections of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and Egyptian Museum in Berlin will conclude the paper.