Project

Non-destructive Analysis of Cultural Heritage Objects

Code
120C25A7
Duration
01 January 2007 → 31 March 2012
Funding
Federal funding: various
Promotor
Research disciplines
  • Humanities
    • Archaeology
    • Theory and methodology of archaeology
    • Other history and archaeology
Keywords
cultural heritage objects non-destructive analysis
 
Project description

Recently, conservation and preservation of our cultural heritage has become a topic of major concern within Europe. Except in countries such as Italy and Greece where care for the cultural heritage is part of the scientific establishment, only a very limited number of research groups that have large experience in the use and development of state-of-the-art scientific methods of analysis spent considerable research efforts on cultural heritage-related problems. On the other hand, there is an increasing need for non-destructive investigation of cultural heritage materials, as sampling is often restricted because of the value or the uniqueness of the artefact. Even when sampling is allowed, non-destructive testing offers the possibility of obtaining more information from a sample, as complementary techniques may be applied on the same sample.
This research program will have two main fields of research:
- 3D imaging of the painting support and paint multilayers
- elemental and molecular analysis on the different layers composing the art object.