the-BA : History turns to jelly

By Angela Newton

Impossible to read a book without opening the cover? Research led by Professor Tim Wess, head of the Institute of Vision at Cardiff University, suggests that it is only a matter of time.

By using Britain’s new Diamond Light Synchrotron, an X-ray source 10 billion times brighter than the sun, non-invasive techniques are being developed that could allow the secrets of priceless documents, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, to be revealed to the world without any damage to the artefacts themselves.

Much of written history has been recorded on conditioned animal skin, which over time degrades from collagen to gelatine, a substance that is brittle when dry and jelly-like when wet.

Researchers have focussed on examining the nanoscopic structure of this collagen substrate, aiming to determine exactly how it degrades. They hope that this will give clues about how the gelatination process can be delayed or prevented, allowing us to better preserve key documents of our cultural heritage such as the Doomsday Book and the Magna Carta.

Iron Gall, the ink used for over two millennia on such records, has been found to play a key role in accelerating the rate of this degradation. However, using this more powerful X-ray scattering technique, it could also be the saving grace of documents feared to be too fragile to disturb.

Iron- and Copper-containing molecules found in the ink can essentially be used as a contrast agent. They absorb high-intensity X-rays with a different frequency to the collagen substrate.

Through depth-profiling and scanning techniques the exact position of ink can be mapped out, from which a virtual 3D image of the document can be constructed.

Documents currently being investigated by the team have been sourced from national archives and include fire-damaged scrolls dating from the eighteenth century, musical manuscripts thought to be written by Beethoven and Mozart, and postage-stamp sized fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Although some of the 800 scrolls have already been opened throughout their long history, it is hoped that by piecing together the fragments answers may be found to the many questions researchers are still asking about them.

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