From the 28th of June to the 1st of July 2022, Dr Signe Vahur, Dr Anu Teearu-Ojakäär from our UT Analytical Chemistry Cultural Heritage Investigation group, and PhD student Shidong Chen from the Archemy group attended the 5th international inArt2022 conference in Paris, France.
InArt is a conference where professionals from different disciplines (for example, chemistry, archaeology, conservation, biology, etc.) can present and discuss the analysis results using a limited amount of samples or non-invasive approaches and conservation strategies of cultural heritage objects. The conference included altogether 47 oral presentations and three poster sessions with 135 posters, different visit options (starting with the National Centre for Research and Restoration in French Museums (C2RMF) to a walking tour in the historical centre of Paris), and dinner at the hotel The Westin Paris.
Investigations from Fayum mummy portraits to street art
Four days were filled with a wide range of interesting presentations, from hyperspectral imaging and material instrumental analysis of different cultural heritage (paintings, sculptures, manuscripts, etc.) and archaeological objects to investigations of chemical and physical degradation mechanisms of various materials.
Some of the most interesting talks included the presentation by Prof Francesca Modugno (from the University of Pisa) about the SuPerStAr project dedicated to the studying and preservation of street art and Dr Lucile Brunel-Duverger (from French Museums Research and Restoration Center) about the analysis of madder lake dyes in the Fayum portraits (from 1st to 4th century A.D). Also should be highlighted the presentations by Dr Maria Filomena Guerra (from French Museums Research and Restoration Center) on the analysis of objects covered with gold leaf and foil from the Egyptian Middle Kindom period, Dr Laura Pagnin (from the Polytechnic University of Milan) about data fusion of Py-GC-MS and FT-IR data to determine degradation in modern paints, and also Loïc Forma (from The National Heritage Institute in Paris) who talked about how to protect cultural heritage objects from vibrational damages. There were many eye-catching poster presentations, however worth mentioning is the poster made by Dr Louise Chassouant and her colleagues on the chemical and palaeobotanical study of Roman amphorae. In their research, they developed a multidisciplinary approach (applied in archaeometry techniques) to analyse the original content of the amphorae (e.g. components of wine, oils, etc.) and determine the waterproof resin coating components in the internal surface.
The highlights of our recent results
At the inArt2022 conference, we had three poster presentations from which we could present our research topics and results. Signe presented her poster “Quantitative mineralogical analysis of clay-containing materials using ATR-FT-IR-PLS method”, where an easy and quick quantitative method for determining the mineralogical composition of clays in different sizes and amounts of cultural heritage (i.e. pottery, sculptures, construction materials, etc.) samples using ATR-FT-IR spectroscopy with partial least squares (PLS) analysis is presented. Anu presented her poster „ Analysis of Early Modern Age medicine found in a shipwreck from the Baltic Sea“. In this study, ATR-FT-IR, pyGC-MS, and MALDI-FT-ICR-MS techniques were combined to determine the chemical composition of materials (like pine tar, essential oil, etc.) in the pharmacy jar found on a 16th-century shipwreck in the Baltic Sea. Shidong presented his poster “Classification of Archaeological Adhesives from Eastern Europe and Urals by ATR-FT-IR Spectroscopy and Chemometric Analysis”. This study showed that ATR-FT-IR-DA classification is a rapid and reliable pre-scanning method for analyzing archaeological adhesives (e.g. birch bark tar), which is especially suitable for small samples.
Overall, the inArt2022 conference gave our cultural heritage and archaeology objects researchers the possibility to introduce their scientific work results, hear presentations of investigation of different materials, obtain valuable tips for further research and have interesting discussions with other scientists.