Cultural heritage workgroup started with new PRG project!

We are happy to announce that Dr. Signe Vahur’s Personal Research Funding Team grant (PRG) project got funded!

Yesterday, on the 5th of January was the first meeting with the team members of her new PRG project. The main aim of this project is the development of a new MS system for the analysis of cultural heritage objects. This project is highly interdisciplinary, as it brings together researchers from natural sciences (analytical chemistry, physics, engineering) and humanities (conservation science, art history, archaeology). The duration of this project is 5 years.

We will keep you posted with new developments of this very demanding and interesting project!

 

Dr. Pilleriin Peets – PhD thesis on the analysis of textile fibres and dyes

Today, on August 25, 2020, Pilleriin Peets successfully defended her PhD thesis titled Development of instrumental methods for the analysis of textile fibres and dyes.

In the thesis by Pilleriin Peets, analytical methods using FT-IR spectroscopy in ATR and reflectance modes were developed for the determination of 16 different fibre types. Additionally, classification methods (discriminant analysis and random forest) were used for the classification of unknown fibres. For the dye analysis, analytical methods using various instrumental sets (HPLC with different mass analysers, MALDI- and ESI-FT-ICR-MS) were developed based on the analysis of seven natural red dyes. 

Based on these results, a large collection of standard spectra and chromatograms was collected and made available for scientists. The advantageous developed methods were used to analyse several cultural heritage samples from the University of Tartu Art Museum, Estonian National Museum, Conservation and Digitization Centre Kanut (Estonia) and private collections. 

Well done, Pilleriin! We wish you all the best for the future!

New non-invasive approach to analyze textile fibers

Another new method development in our group has been assembled into a publication. Article by Pilleriin Peets (on the picture), Karl Kaupmees,  Signe Vahur, and Ivo Leito in the journal of Heritage Science introduces non-invasive approach to identify all kinds of different textile fibers using reflectance-FT-IR spectroscopy and chemometry. In this work 61 single-component textile pieces were analyzed, 4000 spectra were recorded and all in all 16 different textile fiber types were characterized. As reflectance-FT-IR spectroscopy is not widely used to analyze samples with an uneven surface, in our best knowledge, this article provides the largest collection of r-FT-IR spectra from textile fibers that is recorded and published. All the r-FT-IR spectra from different fiber classes are now available for other scientists, conservators, museum workers and industries to use!

PCA classification graph of different textile fiber classes. Peets, P., Kaupmees, K., Vahur, S., Leito, I. Reflectance FT-IR spectroscopy as a viable option for textile fiber identification. Herit Sci  7, 93 (2019)

New publication – Instrumental techniques in the analysis of natural red textile dyes

A wide variety of different dyes, complex composition of natural dye sources and low concentrations in samples make the identification of textile dyes challenging. In our cultural heritage group, work has been done for years to overcome some of these problems. Using seven different red dye sources and five instrumental approaches, a method for the analysis of textile dyes has now been developed in our lab to study different archaeological findings, museum artifacts, and other textile pieces. More about the results can be found in the article published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage by P. Peets, S. Vahur, A. Kruve, T. Haljasorg, K. Herodes, T. Pagano and I. Leito.

The usefulness of this developed method has been proved by analyzing several case-study samples from Estonian National Museum, KANUT, and private collections. Thanks to the multiple instrument combination and especially the usage of high-resolution mass-spectrometry, it was also possible to identify synthetic organic dyes without the use of any standard substances.

MaSC 2019 Workshop and Meeting in Ottawa, Canada

Eliise giving her talk

The 9th Workshop and Meeting of the Users’ Group for Mass Spectrometry and Chromatography (MaSC ) for the study of cultural heritage objects took place on June 3-7, 2019 in Ottawa, the capital of Canada. One of our group members – PhD fellow Eliise Tammekivi – also participated in the workshop and gave an oral presentation at the meeting.

Practical instructions for the analysis of dyes, resins and volatile organic compounds (VOCs)



  • Jennifer Poulin analyzing amber with Thermal Separation Probe (TSP)


  • Dr. Gregory D. Smith presenting a device that can turn even a small sample into a fine powder.

The workshop of MaSC 2019 took place in the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) and Parks Canada, where the Thermal Separation Probe (TSP) was presented as a novel device for thermal desorption and „slow pyrolysis“ analyses in gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCMS) by the leading researchers in the study of cultural heritage materials. With the instructions from Jennifer Poulin (CCI) the participants were able to conduct the analysis of dyes and identify natural resins by the help of AMDIS  software. With instructor Dr. Gregory D. Smith (Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields) participants could perform evolved gas analysis of museum exhibition materials once again with TSP and GCMS.

Topics from fish oil in paintings to the interpretation of highly complex GCMS data

The Meeting of MaSC 2019 took place in the National Gallery of Canada. Presentations were given by the world’s leading analysts about the GCMS analysis of art and historical artifacts. For example, Kate Fulcher (British Museum) talked about the complications of identifying black liquids applied to ancient Egyptian coffins and Corina Rogge (The Museum of Fine Arts Houston) about the utilization of fish oil containing house paints to artists’ paintings in economically difficult times. Additionally, Michael Schilling and Henk van Keulen presented the wonderful advantages of using AMDIS software and ESCAPE for the identification of compounds in complex and small cultural heritage samples. Also, it was Eliise’s first full talk at an international conference, where she presented our groups’ work on the topic „Quantitative analysis of binders in cultural heritage objects“. Specifically, she presented the comparison of four common derivatization procedures in the field of cultural heritage for the quantitative GCMS analysis of oils. For the opportunity to attend the workshop and meeting she would like to thank the organizers of MaSC 2019 and Dora Pluss scholarship (Archimedes).