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Organising committee: Luisa Carvalho, Ana Isabel Seruya and Maria Guerra
The Centre of Atomic Physics of the University of Lisbon was the host of the 1-day workshop "Cultural Heritage: Applications on Conservation-Restoration" which took place last December 3rd. The conference was organised by Prof. Dr. Luisa Carvalho and Prof. Dr. Ana Isabel Seruya in the framework of the AUTHENTICO project, an European funded research project. The conference coincided with an assessment meeting of the project and attendance was free. One of the key topics of this meeting was the bridge between Science and Art, and in all presentations this subject was clearly evidenced. The morning session was started by Maria Luisa Vitobello, from the European Jewellery Technology Network (Belgium), with the presentation of the "AUTHENTICO Project and the lost arts of the ancient goldsmiths". AUTHENTICO is a 3-years cooperative research project that gathers ten institutions, including research centres, museums and the police among others, from eight European countries and is focused on the study of metal artefacts in order to assure their authenticity. By studying the material composition and the manufacturing techniques, the project aims to improve the control of counterfeit art and fraud. In retrospective, we can clearly divide the workshop presentations into two categories. The first group includes all those presentations closely related to the project's thematic, that were as well the most important presentations of the day and which I may say were quite impressive. Filomena Guerra, from the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF), presented "Tracking gold forgeries with X-rays". Dr. Guerra made a short history of the forgeries starting in the Middle Ages with the fabrication of relics by request until the 19th century when forgery extended to all kind of products, from copies to imaginary artefacts. She also introduced the public to the less certain origin of some well known museum collections where not all artefacts are proven to be authentic. In fact, every now and then museum artefacts that never raised much doubts are discovered to be fakes or simply copies, or at least their authenticity may not be proven. In order to investigate this issue Filomena Guerra used several analytical techniques to study in detail jewellery from the Louvre museum. The study included not only elemental analysis to characterise the metal but also techniques that allowed the characterisation of the fabrication techniques. Fortunately, copies from the 19th century, like the ones in study, were not fabricated according ancient metal work techniques. One other example that I wish to mention due to its historic value is the study of 3 morabitinos, the first Portuguese gold coins, which are the only exemplars known so far. Through a series of elemental analysis combined with historic research it was possible to conclude, after the positive identification of Islamic and South-American gold, that one of the coins is in fact an old fake. I believe this presentation resumed very well the AUTHENTICO Project purposes. Inspector Teresa Esteves, from the Stolen Art Squad of the Judiciary Police (Portugal), made quite an impressive and rather sad presentation on the state of the art in our contemporary world and particularly in Portugal. The Squad was formed in 1979 and it is closely linked to Europol and Interpol. It was highlighted that most of the art is stolen under the expressed order of art collectors and dealers and few by opportunity thefts. It was also astonishing to know that like art movements, art theft has also its tendencies. From the 1980s to 2002 most thefts were done for 18th century furniture stolen from manors so clients could recreate old environments in their new farms. Up to 2006 there was a major incidence of theft of tiles robbed from anywhere, from churches to train stations. More astounding was to find out that one third of the stolen tiles are broken or lost. These incidents are not isolated, as anyone visiting Portuguese cities like Lisbon can see tiles missing from buildings in any random street. Since 2007 there are increasing reports of marble sculpture being taken from gardens all over Europe. What is surprising is that these sculptures weight from 200 to 500 kg but there are no witnesses. These are thousands of smaller and bigger thefts that transform art traffic in one of the top most lucrative criminal activities in the world. One story shocked me the most: four polychromed wooden sculptures were thrown into the Tagus River by the thieves during their escape. Thus, we should not think that art is well kept by collectors especially if acquired in criminal ways. Given such accounts, society should be educated and urged to take preventive steps against thefts. Salvador Siano, from the Istituto di Fisica Applicata N. Carrara (Italy), presented the “Study and conservation of bronze artworks: the physical approach”. He spoke about the several cleaning strategies that were applied to Porta del Paradiso, made by Ghiberti in 1452, since the 1966 flood. These cleaning strategies included, for example, chemical and laser cleaning. However, this presentation focused on the study of the original execution techniques that were used. Two hypotheses were advanced and in order to prove or disprove them, a set of pieces were manufactured by the hot wax technique and the results were compared to the originals. It was indeed a good example of experimental archaeology. The surprise of the day came from Guy Demortier, from the Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix (Belgium), who presented “Revisiting the construction of the Kheops pyramid”. It is the general belief of actual archeologists that pyramids were constructed by assembling stone blocks but in his surprising lecture Guy Demortier defended the idea that the pyramids were in fact constructed by casting into molds. Based on mathematical calculations, he advanced the theory that it was not possible to construct the pyramids by block assembly because it is simply impossible to have a block of one square meter ready every 20 seconds with the man power said to have participated. Also, helped by analysis performed to the original stone he concluded that its composition was very similar to a geopolymer discovered by Josephs Davidovits in the 1970s. The theory here defended was that the Egyptians built the stone blocks in the left bank of the Nile with a compound based on limestone and binder containing water and natron. Demortier confessed that despite his certainties and scientific evidence it has proven difficult to spread his theory among archaeologists. Truly, even if he would be wrong, his theory should be taken in account and at least tested until disproved. Such is the role of science and scientists. In the end, such a surprising and remarkable theory reminded me that research is not only about the discovery of new things but also about a new look into our past and knowledge. The second group of presentations gathered some representative research in conservation and restoration currently being developed by Portuguese universities and institutes. These included analytical characterisation of lacquers, a study of the pigments of medieval Portuguese manuscript illumination, and spectroscopic and analytical studies of paintings, paper and ceramic, among others. From a total of 20 presentations many others are worthy to be mentioned although this is beyond the purpose of the present review. I would like to congratulate the organisers for their initiative and to invite them to consider continuing similar efforts in the near future. It is not only important these kind of events to take place regularly but also to be disseminated and advertised in advance in order to bring together and convey information to as many professionals as possible. ▲TOP
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