E-Conservation Magazine - 3

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the online magazine No. 3, February 2008
the online magazine
Becoming conservator Being conservator
Thinking on the choice I made to become a conservator, I realize that it definitely influenced every aspect of my life. Recently, Ive given even more thoughts to this issue since developing the education section of the magazine brought me face to face again, after years, with schools, teachers and students. At a point I got confronted with the regret that in my student time I couldnt benefit from todays facilities and conditions. On the other hand, I felt happy that I already committed to conservation, since to practice this profession has been a wonderful experience for me. Both sides of this story are well exemplified in this issue of the magazine. I think it can be said that Conservation-Restoration higher education is worldwide a very recent concept. After all, in most countries it only appeared at university level within the last 20 years. In 1999, 45 European countries signed the Bologna Declaration, agreeing to establish a common European Higher Education Area. Each country went probably through many changes but now, each signatory country must have the Bologna process implemented and running until 2010. The expected benefits of this long, not without problems implementation, are to overcome the educational system differences and to promote mobility of staff and students between universities, between courses and also between countries. You can't change universities overnight, thus we find very interesting to assess how some countries are making this transition. In this issue you can read about the case of Portugal. Conservation, however, is a dynamic profession by itself. It has active and less active sides, of course, but is about a continuous interchange of information and experience between professionals. This leads me to the other side of my introduction, meaning the advantages, and moreover, the unique opportunities that conservation brings us. This may refer to works of art we deal with, when years ago we might not even have imagined to be in their proximity. It may as well refer to the unique situations we face in conservation. I am now referring to the chance I had to meet John Asmus two years ago in a mural paintings workshop in Romania. For those who are not aware, John Asmus is the American scientist who first applied laser technology to the cleaning of works of art, back in the 70s. It is not very often to meet someone to revolutionise art conservation world as he did, thus we interviewed him to share this experience. I could go on and talk about each of the subjects in this issue as all of them are interesting. They deal with less common areas such as conservation of mummies and sarcophagi and with conservation interventions conditioned by the religious aspect, such as the one at Surpatele Monastery. I hope you will find these subjects as interesting as I did. Rui Bordalo, Executive Editor
editoria
www.prorestauro.com
INDEX
NEWS
NEW WEBSITE Cultural Heritage Conservation Events CONFERENCE REVIEW I Heritage Conference Santa Casa da Misericrdia de Lisboa 14-15 February 2008, Lisbon, Portugal UPCOMING EVENTS February to April 2008 JOHN ASMUS from Lasers to Art Conservation CONSERVATION OF ARCHEOLOGICAL OBJECTS Preservation and Conservation of Mummies and Sarcophagi
by Gian Luigi Nicola, Marco Nicola and Alessandro Nicola
EVENTS INTERVIEW ARTICLES
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MATERIAL STUDIES AND CHARACTERISATION Materials Used in the Chinese Textiles from the National Museum of Art of Romania
by Ileana Cretu and Mihai I. A. Lupu
CASE STUDY
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Saving the Materiality and Spirituality of a Living Church Mural Ensemble Surpatele Monastery, 1706
by Anca Nicolaescu and Simona Patrascu
EDUCATION ORGANISATIONS
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Conservation Education in Portugal ARP - Professional Association of Conservators-Restorers of Portugal

by Andr Varela Remgio
DOCUMENTATION
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Modern Heritage Documentation for Conservation and Cultural Development in the Mediterranean Region
an Interdisciplinary Approach and Postcolonial Perspective
by Annarita Lamberti
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NEW WEBSITE CULTURAL HERITAGE CONSERVATION EVENTS

A project based on the common efforts of e-conservationline and Prorestauro teams was recently completed: an Interactive Calendar of Events dedicated to Conservation of Cultural Heritage. What does this new calendar bring? It was designed not only to update you with the current and forthcoming conservation events, but also to be used as a tool for conservators and other professionals involved in Cultural Heritage activities. It allows anyone to upload events to the database. Events may include conferences, talks, workshops, call for papers, courses and any other kind of appropriate announcements. The calendar was developed as user friendly as possible and has some new features such as a list of important dates - abstract
www.conservationevents.com
submission or registration deadlines, a list of latest events, a section of news and announcements, a directory of links and even tutorials on how to use it. Users can also news and links to other websites of events to the database. The procedure is very simple: after registering an account (which is free, of course, and only takes 1 minute), the user must login. On entry, a menu is displayed from where content can be added. The content becomes available online after the moderators approval which is also a very quick process intended only to prevent spam. The content displayed by the website comes from announcements, list postings, press releases and of course, from the websites of the events organisers. Since listing is the outcome of shared efforts, the calendar is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence, the AttributionNoncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 licence. We hope you will find useful this tool, not only to keep yourself updated with the latest events around the world, but also to promote all kind of information that may be useful for other conservators.
Screenshots of the Cultural Heritage Conservation Events website
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CONFERENCE REVIEW
I JORNADAS DO PATRIMNIO
da Santa Casa da Misericrdia de Lisboa
14-15 February 2008 Lisbon, Portugal Organiser:
Santa Casa da Misericrdia de Lisboa www.scml.pt
Santa Casa da Misericrdia de Lisboa (SCML) promoted last 14th and 15th of February the first Conference of Heritage dedicated to the subject of To rehabilitate, to profit. The conference took place at the Cultural Center of Belm (CCB), in Lisbon. This event brought together several Portuguese specialists from areas like Architecture, Urbanism and Heritage in order to discuss practices of conservation and heritage profiting. SCML is a Portuguese charity institution with over 500 years old. For centuries it controlled and managed hospitals and offered assistance to the poor and in 1783 the queen granted it the control of the national lottery as main funding source. Nowadays, SCML is an historic institution, still devoted to charity, which owns a vast amount of movable and special built heritage from donations, legacies and acquisitions. The management of this built heritage is very important to SCML in order to conserve and to profit from it. The 2 days conference was divided in 6 discussion panels. The discussion panel that opened the conference, The Social Dimension of Heritage, was dedicated to the social role of heritage and the institutions that own it, such as SCML and ONCE - the Spanish National
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Blind Association, which also detains the lottery monopoly in Spain and develops social work towards better integration of the blind in the society. The second discussion panel, Profit from Heritage, introduced the subject of using heritage not only as a symbol of the past but also as an important economic value. After lunch, the panel Rehabilitate Heritage, the most conservation-related panel of all panels started. Dr. Manuel Salgado, from the Town Hall of Lisbon (CML), presented a thorough analysis of the housing conditions in Lisbon: 80% are in good conditions but the remaining 20%, which are concentrated in the historic part of Lisbon, are in bad conditions. In 2007, CML catalogued 4600 uninhabited buildings. Finally, new policy measures to fight against the degraded buildings were presented, including: to discourage demolition, to induce private rehabilitation and to rehabilitate the municipal heritage to serve as example. The next speaker was Dr. Elsio Summavielle,
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CONFERENCE REVIEW
Centro Cultural de Belm (2007)
the director of IGESPAR, the main Portuguese institute that manages the national built heritage. He underlined that there is much need to restore and rehabilitate but that before this, Portuguese should know better their heritage. He took the chance and analysed two examples of cities listed in the World Heritage List and their present condition: vora and Guimares. Next, Dr. Isabel Raposo Magalhes, from the newly created Institute of Museums and Conservation (IMC), introduced the history and the merging process of the former institutes that created IMC: the Portuguese Institute of Museums and the Portuguese Institute of Conservation and Restoration. Finally, Eng. Pedro Ribeiro attempted to answer why we should rehabilitate. He started by assessing the evolution of the anti-seismic historic construction technology used in Lisbons downtown and continued by analysing the costs involved in rehabilitation works versus new constructions. In the end, he highlighted the rehabilitation advantages: historical, economical and environmental. The last panel of the day was The Accessibility of Built Heritage. Dr. Luis Patro, president of Tourism Institute of Portugal (ITP), stated that Portugal is one of the top 20 first visited tourism destinations on global level and that in the regions of Lisbon, Algarve and Madeira is concentrated 87% of the national tourism
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activity. It was also underlined that ITP has 100 million euros for heritage intervention and improvement of visited and noticeable areas. Hopefully, some of these funds will be used in important and urgent conservation interventions. Next, Prof. Jorge Rodrigues, art historian from the New University of Lisbon and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, spoke about the fruition of monumental heritage giving several good and bad examples to follow and to avoid, such as those of Altamira in Spain and Carnac in France, respectively. Prof. Rui Mateus Pereira, from CML, reminded that Lisbon is the origin of 87% of the cultural activity produced in Portugal. At the end of the day, Dr. Teresa Morna, curator of SCMLs So Roque Museum, presented the rehabilitation that the museum building is undergoing. The good accessibility of the visitors, the judicious conditioning and the exhibiting conditions were some of the main discussed subjects. The next day, the conference continued with the two remaining discussion panels fully dedicated to real state management and to its economic characteristics: Real State Funds: Management Models and Real State Funds: a Management Experience. Besides the interesting presentations of the participants, I should also mention the good organisation and the open entrance which encouraged a larger audience. I hope this was only the first event of a series that Santa Casa da Misericrdia de Lisboa will continue to organise and I am expecting to see in the nearest future some practical results of these discussions during my walks on the streets of Lisbons downtown.
Reviewed by Rui Bordalo and Teodora Poiata

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GLASSAC March 2008

The events in this section are linked to the original homepage of the organisers. In case the event does not have an individual page, the calendar of events will open at www.conservationevents.com. Click on "Read more..." to find out more details about each event.
II Conference on Glass Science in Art and Conservation Date:5 -7 March Place: London, UK Read more...
GLASSAC is an international meeting that tries to involve the chemical, physical and biological sciences with art, archaeology and history of glass artefacts. It includes all aspects of the history, the technology and the manufacture of glass and glass artefacts.
Building Museums February 2008

Date: 28 February - 01 March Place: Washington, USA MAAM is seeking proposals for sessions that will engage museum professionals, architects, planners, and other technical experts in a dynamic exchange of ideas about key issues for museum building projects. Symposium participants will enjoy opportunities to meet and learn from the professionals impacting museum construction projects today. Read more...
Illicit Traffic of Cultural Heritage in the Mediterranean Region

Date: 12-15 March Place: Florence, Italy This workshop focuses on evolving multilateral efforts and national responses in the Mediterranean region to control the illicit trade in cultural heritage, particularly underwater heritage. It will identify areas of policy and law reform, and facilitate strategies to encourage the uptake and implementation of existing multilateral instruments and the creation of regional initiatives to curb the illicit traffic of cultural objects. - workshop conducted within the framework of the 9th Mediterranean Research Meeting Read more...
Masterclass on Ethiopic Bindings

Date: 25-29 February Place: London, UK Read more...
No Museum Left Behind

Date: 14 March Place: Chicago, IL, US Since the passing of the 2001 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, many schools have struggled to meet the new needs of both teachers and students. Museums continue to struggle with these challenges. Panelists from various institutions will present creative programs that their museums have adapted for the NCLB legislation. Read more...
The week long course - run by John Mumford, Head of Book Conservation at the BL - will give an introduction to the history of Ethiopic Binding. Through a series of practical demonstrations and exercises participants will gain an understanding of the construction of an Ethiopic binding within a cultural and historical context. This course is aimed at book conservators and participants are expected to already have skills in book structures.
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event
EVENTS
19th Century American Cloth Binding
4th Ename Colloquium Between Objects and Ideas

Re-thinking the Role of Intangible Heritage in Museums, Monuments, Landscapes, and Living Communities Date: 26-29 March Place: Ghent, Belgium This three-day international colloquium will present a wide range of perspectives on the future of policy, funding, interpretive technologies, and public involvement in the field of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Programme themes: Defining the Boundary between Tangible and Intangible The Challenge: Safeguarding or Facilitating? Who Owns Intangible Heritage? Read more...
March 2008
Date: 14 March Place: Washington, D.C., Maryland, US
Read more...
The symposium is featuring prominent scholars, curators, and collectors exploring various aspects of the history and appreciation of cloth bindings. It accompanies the exhibition "The Well-Dressed Book: Cloth Book Binding in the United States, 1830-1920," which draws mainly upon the university's special collections.
Radiocarbon and Archaeology

5th International Symposium Date: 26-28 March Place: Zurich, Switzerland Nearly 60 years after the publication of the first radiocarbon ages, the radiocarbon dating method has become the key dating tool in archaeology. The conference will focus on the new developments and problems associated with radiocarbon methods as well as their application in archaeological studies. Read more...
3D Colour Laser Scanning

Date: 27-28 March Place: London, UK The project aims to bring together a range of experts from the higher education and the museum and heritage sectors with diverse research interests. It will explore the uses and advantages of using scanning techniques, from reviewing the current range and uses of scanning in museums through to discussing the future implications of this technology, with a stress on innovative and creative applications. The aim of this project is to bring together, through Read more... workshops, practical sessions and a conference, as well as in an edited publication, museum conservators, educators, scientists, curators and other professionals from the higher education and museum sectors who are interested in this technology and its implications across the heritage sector. Main themes of the conference: - 3D scanning in Education and Interpretation - 3D scanning in Display and Exhibition - 3D scanning in Conservation. Read more...
IRUG8
8th International Conference of Infrared and Raman User's Group Date: 26-29 March Place: Vienna, Austria The conference is dedicated to the professional development of its members and provide a forum for the exchange of infrared (IR) and Raman spectroscopic information for scientists, conservation scientists and conservators- restorers as well as curators within the art conservation and historic preservation fields for studying the worlds cultural heritage.
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March 2008
EVENTS
XI Reunions Tcniques de Conservaci-Restauraci April 2008

Date: 3-4 April Place: Barcelona, Spain El Grup Tcnic us convida a reflexionar sobre la diversitat de criteris en els processos de conservaci i restauraci i a contribuir en un debat cientfic i tcnic sobre les nostres preses de decisions, un aspecte de la professi que no sempre s prou conegut, ni est contrastat amb l'opini dels professionals del nostre sector. Read more...
Hydrophobe V
Fifth International Conference on Water Repellent Treatment of Building Materials Date: 15-16 April Place: Brussels, Belgium The long-term aim is to promote research and development of water repellent treatments in order to improve the durability and prolong the use of buildings. Read more...
Museums and the Web 2008

Date: 9-12 April Place: Montral, Qubec, Canada Read more...
IAQ 2008 8th Indoor Air Quality 2008 Meeting

Date: 17-19 April Place: Vienna, Austria Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is a workshop series that is Read more...
Museums and the Web addresses the social, cultural, design, technological, economic, and organizational issues of culture, science and heritage on-line. Taking an international perspective, senior speakers with extensive experience in Web development review and analyze the issues and impacts of networked cultural, natural and scientific heritage.
devoted to reporting and discussing the progress in the field of indoor air quality related research in museums, archives and collections. The meetings provide an informal, yet highlevel, trans-disciplinary forum for the discussion of new scientific results on corrosion and degradation mechanisms due to indoor air pollution as well as strategies for air quality monitoring and mitigation - with particular emphasis on novel dosimeter or sensor systems.
MetalEspaa 08
Congreso de Conservacin y Restauracin del Patrimonio Metlico Date: 21 24 April Date: 10-12 April Place: Madrid, Spain The theme for AICs 2008 Annual Meeting is Creative El Congreso de Conservacin y Restauracin del Patrimonio Metlico MetalEspaa 08, quiere ser un medio de comunicacin de los proyectos ms destacados de intervencin y de los ltimos avances en innovacin tecnolgica e investigacin aplicada a la conservacin objetos y obras confeccionadas en metal. Collaborations. The theme is an intentionally broad, meant to highlight successful projects completed by conservators partnering with professionals in other fields, such as scientists, engineers, artists, owners/ shareholders, or industrial representatives. A program to include a variety of events is currently being planned. Read more... Place: Denver, Colorado, US Read more...
AIC 2008 Annual Meeting
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April 2008
intervie
JOHN ASMUS
from Lasers to Art Conservation
John Asmus is one of the worlds leading conservation scientists, acknowledged and often referred to as the grandfather of laser art conservation. He made history through his innovations which contributed massively to the advancement of technology applied to art conservation. Among his outstanding professional achievements in conservation over the past years can be recalled significant works of art as the Mona Lisa and the Emperor Qins terracotta army. John Asmus has been Research Physicist at the Institute for Pure and Applied Physical Sciences at UCSD since 1973. He received a Ph.D. from Caltech in Quantum Electronics and Physics, and has 130 published articles and 25 patents. He introduced holography, lasers, ultrasonic imaging, and digital image processing to art conservation and adapted gas-embedded plasma-pinch technology to the generation of intense ultraviolet radiation for surface preparation applications. Earlier work in high-energy excimer lasers was conducted at US NOL, General Atomic, Maxwell Labs, and SAIC. At General Atomic he participated in the ORION nuclear spaceship program. The Rolex Laureate for Enterprise was awarded to him in 1990 for his restoration work on the Emperor Qin terracotta warriors of Xian, China. He has been a member of numerous art conservation teams throughout the world.
INTERVIEW
We thank Dr. John Asmus for his kind collaboration to this interview, carried out by email in January 2008, by Rui Bordalo.
Rui Bordalo: As a physicist, in the 60s you were researching the application of powerful lasers within rocket technology. How did you make the switch from this to cultural heritage laser applications? John Asmus: I began my graduate work in plasma physics at Caltech in 1958, and in 1960 one of my classmates (a Hughes Research Laboratory consultant) informed me that they had just operated the first laser. A few months later I borrowed a Hughes laser and began using it for electron scattering measurements in a plasma. Then, my part-time employer (US Naval Ordnance Laboratory) sent me to Copenhagen for two years to build a VLF (Very Low Frequency) Radar system to monitor Soviet ICBM launches and high-altitude nuclear explosions. In my spare time I traveled all over Europe visiting museums and developing a love for classical art. When I finished my graduate work in 1964 I began my employment with General Atomic on Project ORION (the nuclear-propelled spaceship for a mission to the planet Saturn). General Atomic was attractive to me as top physicists such as Freeman Dyson and Marshall Rosenbluth were there. The 1962 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (promoted by my former chemistry professor, Nobel Laureate, Linus Pauling) put an end to any hope continuing with ORION flight tests. However, the originator of the ORION (Theodore Taylor) realized that a very powerful (non nuclear) laser could be substituted for an atomic bomb as a source of propulsion. As I was the only one at General Atomic with laser experience, I was asked to lead in the development of a laser-propelled
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On the Hawaiian Island of Nihaau (1956) to make measurements of radiation from a high-altitude nuclear test over Johnston Island.
spaceship. First, we developed a Nd:glass laser that produced 200 Joules in a 200-nanosecond pulse. We focused this gigawatt beam on small metal disks (in vacuum) and the reaction force of the ablation plasma propelled the material to a world record velocity of 20km/sec. This amounted to a terrestrial meteorite factory and we did assess the meteoroid hazard to satellites and spacecraft. All of my team were amazed that the theoreticians were correct in projecting that an energetic ablation plasma could be generated on a surface without destroying the object.
Test cleaning a stone block from the US Capitol Building (1980). This test was done at the request of Mr. George White (Capitol Architect), which then arranged for John Asmus to laser clean some stones from the Egyptian Temple of Philae.
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RB: You were also involved in the then recent innovation of laser generated holography which you applied in Venice in 1972. This moment is remembered as the starting point of laser cleaning application in art. Can you tell us how that happened? JA: In 1968 the Gulf Oil Company purchased General Atomic. Much of the laser, plasma physics, and nuclear work came to an end at that time. I accepted a position in Washington, D.C. as a Defense Department advisor on the highenergy (STARWARS) laser program. In 1970 the Presidents science advisor (Edward David) asked me to lead his JASON summer-study group in formulating a National Laser Program. During the study I happened to give a lecture on the holographic plasma diagnostics that had been performed at General Atomic. A geophysicist in the study group (Walter Munk) suggested that this type of pulsed insitu holographic 3D recording could be used to produce high-resolution archival images of crumbling Venetian marble sculpture before they disappeared entirely. (Munk had been working in Venice on developing a computer model of the tidal action in the Adriatic that leads to the "acqua alta" floods.) We wrote a grant proposal to the Italian Government offering to determine whether it was feasible to produce large format in-situ holograms of life-size statues in Venice. Then, an Italian resident (Dennis Gabor) won the Nobel Prize for physics and endorsed our proposal. Consequently, our proposed study received funding. Second, a pioneer in pulsed holography, Ralph Wuerker of TRW, agreed to participate in the program in Venice. Third, the president of TRW (Simon Ramo) offered to loan us the most powerful ruby holographic laser then in existence at no cost.
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John Asmus applying pioneering laser divestment methods to remove dirt from a marble relief of "The Last Supper" at the entrance (Porta della Carta) to the Palazzo Ducale in Venice (1981).
In January 1972 the laser was delivered to Venice and it functioned perfectly in spite of numerous logistical impediments. By the end of February we had produced over 50 holograms (later displayed at the Academia Museum) and NDT (NonDestructive Testing) holographic interferograms (revealing hidden defects in artworks). In March the restorer of monuments in Venice (Giulia Musumeci) described to us the great difficulties in successfully cleaning crumbling marble sculpture. Based on the ORION experience I estimated appropriate conditions for ablating the black crusts from crumbling marble, with minimum damage. The ruby holographic laser was then focused to an appropriate fluence and self-limiting radiation divestment of friable marble was demonstrated. Musumeci, her mentor (Kenneth Hempel of the Victoria and Albert Museum), and Sir Ashley Clark (Director, Venice in Peril Fund) were delighted with the laser cleaning and began promoting the process to their patrons, associates, and the Venetian officials. At that point the holography program became a laser statue cleaner development project. RB: The first cleaning attempts were made with a ruby laser but its use was not continued, later being substituted by Nd:YAG lasers.
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INTERVIEW
continue to be favored for pulsed holography as the wavelength in the visible is commensurate with the spectral sensitivity of photographic emulsions, and high coherence is readily achieved, as well). RB: Among your numerous works, you were involved in a project designated to uncover the lost mural painting "The Battle of Anghiari" by Leonardo da Vinci. Can you give an insight into this fascinating challenge? JA: Carlo Pedretti of UCLA located historical Florentine documents suggesting that the Medici may not have destroyed the remains of Leonardos great "Battle of Anghiari" mural, but covered it over with Vasari paintings, instead. Upon hearing of the laser work in Venice, a Florentine official (Umberto Baldini) asked that we make holograms of the Vasari murals in order to determine whether there were "remains of the Leonardo mural beneath the surface" and then "uncover the Anghiari through laser divestment". A UCSD multidisciplinary team concluded that the Vasari and masonry materials of the Hall of the Five Hundred could be more successfully explored through ultrasonic imaging. In 1976 we designed, built, and tested a 1MHz ultrasonic digital imaging system with an automated stepping-motor-controlled transducer scanner. In 1977 we ultrasonically mapped the masonry strata beneath the Vasari paintings. On the East wall we located a 2mx5m plane "island" 7mm beneath the surface through ensemble averaging of the tens of thousands of ultrasonic echoes. As this area appeared to be the most likely location for any remains of the Anghiari mural, we suggested using a laser to drill a very small (1mm) hole into the wall and employ LIBS (Laser Induced
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Fiber Optic (Nd:YAG) laser statue cleaner being tested on a contemporary iron sculpture in San Diego prior to delivery to Arecon (Padova, Italy) in 1994. (Built by UCSD student volunteers at low cost: US$10,000).
What disadvantages did the ruby laser present and why did it turn out to be an obsolete technology for the conservation of artworks? JA: The Venetian officials (Francisco Valcanover, in particular) convinced the S.H. Kress Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution to fund a program at UCSD (Walter Munks organization, University of California San Diego) to evaluate the "safety" and "utility" of laser treatment of all materials found in artworks. Between 1972 and 1974 it was found that laser cleaning can be made to work on marble, limestone, oolite, sandstone, stucco, concrete, terra cotta, most metals, leather, velum, paper, cotton, wool, silk, moleskin, and wood. The cleaning of stained glass, ceramics, paintings, and frescos appeared promising, but problematical. The final phase of the program was the development, construction, and delivery of a laser statue cleaner for Venice (1975). This laser employed a Nd:YAG, rather than a ruby, laser crystal. During the intervening years the laser industry had succeeded in perfecting large, high quality YAG laser rods that led to systems higher in both efficiency and repetition rate than ruby, as well as lower in cost and smaller in size. (Ruby lasers
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JOHN ASMUS
Breakdown Spectroscopy) to watch for any sign of pigment residues at the 7mm depth. The search was then turned over to a local Florentine "art diagnostician" and we continue (after 30 years!) to await any announcement as to the results of that investigation. RB: You made as well an analytical study of Leonardos Mona Lisa. Can you tell us the story of this interesting study and of the surprising results you achieved? JA: When Carlo Pedretti and the late Lord Kenneth Clark learned of our ultrasonic digital image processing results they asked that we attempt to employ computer enhancement to clarify Leonardos "Mona Lisa". They hoped to see a simulation of the paintings original appearance: free of restorations (paint losses as well as layers of brown varnish) and unfiltered by webs of cleavage and craquelure. In 1980 I was interviewed by TV anchor, Walter Cronkite, on the Anghiari project for his new "Universe" program. This resulted in his agreeing to fund the Mona Lisa image enhancement effort, which included his "renting" the Leonardo piece for a day of inspection and analysis at the Louvre conservation laboratory. With additional
funding from IBM and free use of their supercomputer we produced a beautiful version of the Mona Lisa that was free of the brown "smoggy atmosphere" and without the cracks. We employed gain-bias adjustments together with FFT, principal component, and bi-scatter
John Asmus employing computer enhancement to reveal hidden details of the image of Mona Lisa (above). The pentimenti of the beads of the necklace at the lower left side of the picture (below, left), detail of the river on the right side of the "Mona Lisa" (below, center) and detail from "Near Perugia" by the 19th Century American artist, George Inness (below, right).
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INTERVIEW
digital filtering to attain the final "restored" image. Various science museums display 1m enlarged prints showing the various steps in the enhancement. We were able to map areas that had been over cleaned and clarify some details in the background. The most dramatic and unexpected result was the discovery of pentimenti revealing that Leonardo had first painted the female image with a necklace and then hid it with over paints. (Ten years later, after first questioning the validity of our discovery, the Louvres laboratory made new X rays of the painting and confirmed the existence of the necklace.) Another revealing area of the enhanced image is the river and bridge at the ladys left elbow. This exact scene appears in works by other artists and is clearly the Tiber River "Near Perugia". This observation together with the necklace evidence lend weight to the longheld idiosyncratic theory that the original subject of the painting was Costanza dAvalos. RB: In your articles you often refer to laser cleaning of works of art as "laser divestment". What is the origin of this term and why do you prefer it? JA: When I first began treating black crusts on marble with lasers I called it "cleaning". Upon meeting several prominent conservators (e.g., Hempel, Organ, Rinne, Stout, and Buck), I was told that the correct term is "divestment" which means the removal of a specific stratum (viz., cloak) to uncover the "body" within. Subsequently, I have observed that many conservators do call it "cleaning". RB: Your projects in the 70s and 80s were funded by several institutions, from the Getty Foundation to unexpected sources as MetroGoldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Compared to those
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times how do you see the funding of scientific projects applied to works of art nowadays? JA: At Caltech there was a legend that Carl Anderson (one of our Nobel Laureates) had received funding from a motion picture studio for his discoveries of the positron and antimatter. Naturally, it seemed to me that I should try to do likewise. One year, when we began working on stone, the motion picture "Clockwork Orange" did very well at the Venice Film Festival. It was easy to convince Jack Warner that he should share a portion of his profits for the conservation of the city. As I retired in 1988, I havent had to approach any funding agencies for a long time. In the beginning very little funding seemed to be available from museums and we were supported by foundations such as the Kress, agencies such as the National Museum Act, and private conservation companies such as Arecon of Padova. Now that conservation with lasers is accepted and widespread it seems that a great deal of the work is supported by museums. RB: Laser cleaning application started on stone but later research focused also on other supports such as paintings, paper, paleontological materials and even on unusual materials such as feathers or egg shells. However, commercially there is still only equipment designed for stone cleaning. Why do you think this is? Do you think technology is still not well developed, that research stagnated for a long time, or that the conservation world is just too conservative? JA: Fortunately, it turns out that removing black crusts from marble is very easy
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as it is black (absorptive) on white (reflective). That is where laser conservation began. In addition there are large amounts of stone to conserve as its such a popular building material and the existing technologies were unsatisfactory. It is also an accident that one of the most popular and high performance of laser types (Nd:YAG) works very well on most stones. The situation is far different in other fields of art conservation. Many traditional techniques work quite well. There is a great diversity in materials and their colors and properties. One could speculate that a different laser may be needed to optimize a treatment for each conservation problem. There certainly are not the financial resources in art conservation to enable the invention of a new laser type to solve each individual problem. Still, there are other commercial laser types such as excimer, carbon dioxide, and erbium that have found limited use in art conservation. The bottom line is that much of the entire laser industry is awaiting a breakthrough much as took place in the semiconductor/ computer industry some decades ago. What everyone awaits is a low cost, high power, versatile, semiconductor laser that can be mass-produced. The first conservators I met told me "conservators are conservative". That has not bothered me very much. Many medical physicians have complained to me that some medical laser systems have been "over sold". They were sold before they were proven. RB: Laser cleaning started over 30 years ago but it is still not a commonly employed technology. Do you think this is due to conservators lack of trust in new technology or to other reasons such as the lack of information, insufficient research and dissemination, high costs, etc.?
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John Asmus (left) and the Chinese engineer Wen Rei Tang (right) using laser cleaning to recover the polychromy of a miniature model of the Emperor Qins terracotta army.
JA: One of the first conservators I met was David Rinne of the Getty museum. He predicted that lasers would become commonplace in conservation "when the last of the old guard dies off". That may be partially true. However, when I worked on the terra cotta warriors (1990) in Xian I was amazed at the performance and diversity of the art conservation lasers they had developed on their own. About 25 years ago there was an accidental breach in security, and I learned that I had been nominated for a McArthur ("Genius") Award. I understood that there was one unfavorable evaluation of my work which stated that the laser in conservation was "bogus". The writer held a prominent and powerful position in one of the major US museums. It is also interesting to note that (in contrast to the US) virtually every EU country has a significant laser conservation program. The establishment in 1994 of LACONA is
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INTERVIEW
responsible for this in large measure. Im also encouraged by recent increases in communications, visitors, and visiting scholars from such places as Australia, South America, India, and Egypt. RB: You were involved in the restoration of the Emperor Qin terracotta army. How was your experience in China? JA: I visited, toured, and worked in China several times between 1980 and 1990. They made incredible technical progress in those ten years. By the end of that interval my host, Mr. Wen Rei Tang, was building and using laser statue cleaners higher in performance than any others in the world. Further, he accomplished this using primitive components such as Nd:glass, rather than YAG (which was not available to him). Mr. Wen had come from a military weapons background and was highly experienced and well trained. Our collaboration ended in 1991 when he was reassigned to a different project
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involving commercial products. I am very surprised that a Chinese laser statue cleaner has not appeared on the international market. My three favorite memories involve the wonderful dining, the High Lama of the Fa Men Temple granting me "one hundred additional years of great good fortune", and the vast amount of art in need of conservation. RB: Based on your extensive experience that has successfully combined science, technology and art, how do you see the future of this technology in conservation of artworks? JA: One of my mentors at UCSD is James Arnold of the Chemistry Department. His thesis at the University of Chicago was the discovery of radiocarbon dating. Several years ago I told him of my disappointment that the widespread use of lasers in art remained a dream. He responded that to his chagrin his first publication on dating with isotopes was greeted with "a great big yawn". He counseled patience. In a larger sense I look upon my work in the arts as a continuation of Prof. Arnolds example and tradition. I have been gratified at recent conferences to see others continuing to apply still newer technologies to the service of the arts.
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PRESERVATION AND CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI

GIAN LUIGI NICOLA MARCO NICOLA ALESSANDRO NICOLA
All images are copyrighted to the owners of the respective works of art and to the authors of this article
CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI
In Italy, and particularly in the collection held by the Egyptian Museum of Turin, there are many archaeological findings representing a challenge, in terms of conservation. Most of them were unearthed during the archaeological excavation campaigns carried out in Egypt during the XIXth and XXth century whilst some of them are donations received from private collections formerly belonging to wealthy personality and noblemen of the XIXth century, when it was fashionable to own Egyptian artefacts or even mummies. In many cases these collectors or their heirs donated such items to the museums for patronage or when they were no longer willing to possess them. These donations often constitute small collections, almost unknown, and held in Archaeological and/or Civic Museums. Until recently, archaeological findings of this kind were stored as and exhibited without the care required for a museum object, submitting them to improper restoration involving irreversible consequences, such as in case of mummies bandage removal and inappropriate use of sarcophagi, and well as invasive and irreversible treatments. The conservation of this type of archaeological material is difficult although quite often reserving unexpected surprises and great satisfaction. In this essay we will focus on some preservation and conservation issues we had to face when performing conservation activities on the mummies and sarcophagi acquired by some museums from private collections. Special attention will be drawn on environmental parameters, research and analysis, transportation systems, compatibility of materials and philosophy of conservation.
Introduction Throughout the nearly 60 years of experience in conservation boasted by the three generations of the Nicola family, several interventions were made on Egyptian artefacts formerly belonging to private collections and then acquired by public Institutions. This essay will focus on archaeological findings of such provenance nowadays held by the Italian Civic and/or Archaeological Museums. This choice is due to the fact that such findings are particularly interesting under the conservation point of view since they usually went through many vicissitudes, a history which seems to be more complex than the one discovered when restoring the mummies and the funerary outfits belonging to great collections such as those of the Egyptian Museum of Turin. In the past, the mummy and the sarcophagus of
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Pa Sheri en Aset (Museo Archeologico di Genova Pegli, Italy) were exposed in vertical position for many years and, after falling down, both the corpse and the container were seriously damaged and had to be restored to face the emergency. The subsequent intervention conducted actually involved an "archaeological research" into the finding, which brought to the recomposition of the written text inside the sarcophagus and the reconstruction of the complex outfit of funerary objects. Another interesting case we had to deal with was the conservation project relating to the Egyptian mummy and the relevant sarcophagus belonging to the Museo Civico di Merano, Italy, involving the recovery from the damages caused by a mouse and the removal of a previous, inappropriate restoration. At the moment1,
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we are also carrying out some analysis in order to plan the best possible conservation activity required on a Roman age Egyptian mummy belonging to the Museo Scarabelli, Imola, presenting problems which were apparently due to the putrefaction process. The operations performed during conservation activities required for mummies are sometimes incorrectly defined with the Italian term "restauro" (which literally corresponds to "restoration", although the term is usually translated as "conservation" to correctly match the meaning in English) however, they are actually steered towards the material preservation, with the aim to ensure the possibility of further studies by means of non-destructive analysis.
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Pa Sheri en Asets mummy and sarcophagus (Museo Archeologico di Genova Pegli, Italy) Thanks to the conservation project, started in 1991 and ended in 1999, it has been possible to apprehend some interesting information on the construction of these findings and to better understand their history. The sarcophagus belongs to the anthropoid bivalve type: apparently, this technique was often used in the construction of coffins of mummies of the same age of the one under review (images 1, 2). The wooden moulded parts composing the sarcophagus were not glued one to the other but rather fixed by wooden pegs with circular
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profile, which were transversally fitted into the axes thickness. The coffin, once built and assembled, was then sawn transversally, in order to obtain perfectly matching bed and top (images 3-5). On the cut surface between the bed and the top, six housings were carved for the pegs to be fitted therein, with proper rabbet partially filled with glue and fibres. The coffin was then closed and sealed with plaster, which was applied manually on the outside after the completion of the interior decoration and placement of the corpse inside. The sarcophagus internal and external surfaces are decorated with tempera colours on a layer of plaster, which fills the slits between the axes and completely covers the wood (images 6, 7).
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In this sarcophagus there wasnt a canvas incorporated in the preparatory layer, which has been found sometimes within coffins of the same age. During the conservation activities, it has been possible to ascertain that the whole decoration was originally drawn on the coffin keeping it open; such type of decoration differs from the one executed on a closed coffin, with the mummified body inside, the decorative motifs on the bed are independent from those on the top, in other words there is no continuity (image 8).
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Furthermore, it became evident that the drawing was sketched in red and then the colours were laid with a particular order: red first then yellow, green, blue and finally black. The latter marks out the drawing in some particular areas. This colour sequence, detected looking at the superimposing layers of the hues, often recurs in the decoration of Egyptian findings of this age. On the top, in correspondence with the areas over the mummys chest and legs, the remains of a semi-transparent amber-coloured substance, similar to a varnish, were detected (image 9).
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We found this substance several times on other contemporary or earlier sarcophagus other times it had been removed during previous restorations since it was deemed as non-original. Said substance, as the majority of natural varnishes, is easily soluble in organic solvents and shows golden yellow fluorescence under UV light. During an earlier conservative operation, in order to prevent uplifts and detachments, some lightweight tissue paper was applied on the whole surface to protect it and sealing the top to the bed. The lower part of the top, over the feet, was disjoint and slack; from the openings it was possible to see that part of the mummy had fallen down due to the prolonged standing in vertical position (image 10). Before removing the thin layer of interim tissue paper, a preliminary inspection to assess the conditions of the mummy and the presence of interior decoration inside the coffin has been carried out by means of optical fibres (images 11, 12).
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From the results of this preliminary exam we were expecting to find out a serious damage, which was actually ascertained after the opening of the sarcophagus after having eliminated the tissue paper sealing its two parts. The remains of the mummy, which were completely disarticulated, occupied the lower half of the sarcophagus as a compact mass taking the shape of the coffins interior. Many fragments of painted plaster detached from the coffin and felt on the corpse whilst many particles were deposited among the bandages (image 13).
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After temporarily fixing the lift-ups of the interior decoration still in place and carefully collecting the fragments fallen on the bandages, the corpse was transferred on a specially provided stretcher, carefully avoiding to alter the position of the mummys remains. In the area where the corpse was laying inside the bed, many fragments of the coffins interior decoration were found, as well as a few faence amulets and a multitude of annular and cylinder shaped beads (nearly 13,000), which originally formed the magic armour (image 14). Thanks to the radiographies of the corpse, weve been able to ascertain that the coffin had already been opened not just because the bones were in absurd position (the feet under the right elbow and the jaws under the feet) but also because the carved beard of the sarcophagus was found inside the coffin, with the mummy (images 15-17).
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In the past, the sarcophagus certainly was exposed to a severe trauma, which caused the breakage of a few parts of the wooden coffin and of the corpse. Such distress did not happen recently: in an old photograph of the Museum, the sarcophagus is standing, secured by a rope winded around the abdomen and a wire around the throat in order to prevent its falling down inside the glass cabinet (images 18). Relying on the radiography, we carried out a sort of "archaeological research" into the lump of organic powder, burnt bandages, bones, skin, resin, plaster and wood fragments, beads and amulets (image 19). During this sorting operation the black stone sacred anepigraph scarab, usually placed over the heart of the deceased, was found (images 2022).
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All the findings were selected and recorded. At this point it was possible to start restoring the wooden sarcophagus: the fragmentary parts found inside the case, including the carved beard have been put back in place; the broken pegs have been replaced if not recoverable whilst the missing ones have been replaced and fitted into the original housing. The new pegs have been made out of robinia wood as the mechanical stress performance is similar to the original pegs one and also because it is easily recognizable by laboratory analysis or under UV light as its fluorescence is peculiar. The assembly of all the parts back in place enabled to recover
some of the original strength of the structure. We did our best to limit the use of glues, which have been employed only for anchorage and consolidation of the detached fragments whilst no glue was used to fix the pegs or the original set-up in order not to alter the original cabinet. Only in one case it was necessary to insert a stainless steel pin, in the left side area of the coffins bed. Once completed the coffins assembly it was possible to proceed with consolidation, fixing the colours as well as the preparatory layer to the wooden support; such operation turned out to be quite difficult due to the presence of wax, which had been applied in previous restorations as a fixative (images 23, 24).
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For this reason it was first necessary to execute an accurate cleaning of the decorated surfaces, even if this operation was particularly difficult, considering the frailty and porosity of the paint. The dust and organic substances deposited on the surface were removed first. The old wax fixatives were then removed by extraction using organic solvents applied on cellulose supports. At this point the lengthy work of repositioning the many detached fragments of the coffins interior decoration, almost tiny fragments, could start. Most of the interiors inscriptions have been recomposed relying on the work of text interpretation
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(carried out by an Egyptologist2) and on the preliminary study on the morphological and technical features of the fragments, including the plasters thickness, the distinguishing marks of the wood fibres on the plaster and the brushstrokes (images 2527). All the blue faence elements, the beads, the tiny cylinders, the amulets and the sacred scarab have been collected with care, in order not to further damage the part of the mummy still in the original anatomic position. Therefore, in some cases we preferred not to extract some beads fallen deeply into the still swathing mummys legs and pelvis. Finding the above mentioned recovered elements we could understand that the mummy was probably adorned by magic armour made of extraordinarily tiny elements. As agreed with the Principal and the Superintendent, these elements have been used to recompose the fragmentary magic armour taking as a model some analogous findings of the same age existing in various museums. More particularly, the magic armour belonging to the Muse du Louvre, Paris, is composed by a series of round shaped beads which are
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similar to the ones found on the Pa Sheri en Aset mummy, even if the size of the faence small cylinders is smaller and the shape of the sacred winged scarab is different. The embroidery recomposition has been executed using linen threads, following the typical
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construction scheme of the Egyptian magic armours of that age (images 28, 29). Nevertheless, the result is merely a propositional and not a faithful reconstruction and is easily reversible hence not precluding any further development. The remains of the mummy have been placed in anatomic position, even without proceeding with the complete reconstruction of the skeleton (image 30). The detached bandages and fragments were put into paper bags and placed over the corpse, which was then wrapped in canvas and placed on a moulded and perforated fibreglass tray3, containing and holding the mummy though allowing air circulation. The corpse and the tray as a whole have been bandaged and covered by a modern linen sheet secured by a braid, as in ancient times, and the magic armour has been laid thereon (images 31, 32).
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Egyptian mummy and sarcophagus, Museo Civico di Merano, Italy The mummy and the sarcophagus had been stored for a long while in the deposit of the Museo di Merano, inside a closet wooden case which shielded the findings but could not prevent the damage caused by the xylophagous insects and rodents neither dust infiltration (images 33, 34). As the case was opened it was immediately clear that the content was in very bad conditions: the sarcophagus was disjointed in several points despite the previous restorations and covered by a thick layer of dust, whilst the mummy inside was under a blanket of cotton stuffing and chips (images 35, 36) The sarcophagus is structurally analogous to the Pa Sheri En Aset sarcophagus, with the exception of the decoration, which is rather poorer in this case. Furthermore, this sarcophagus was used as a container in the past, as suggested by the eighteenth century metal hooks applied thereto. The wooden sarcophagus, still bearing the plaster layer with tempera decoration has been already restored in al 1915 ca., with a patchy recomposition using nails, screws4 and other metal and wooden stiffeners. The painted surfaces had been
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treated with a fixative which resulted extremely tough and opalescent. The chemical analysis detected the presence of a white nacreous siliceous layer, materially compact with varying thickness, which suggested the presence of a sodium silicate. Unfortunately, the cleaning test results showed that it wasnt possible to remove such layer without risks for the artefact and therefore cleaning had to stop when reaching the ultimate layer composed by the above mentioned substance (images 37, 38). The conservation activities performed by our team in years 2002-2003 brought to the recovery and reassembly of all the wooden structures parts which were broken or detached but didnt get lost as secured by metal or wooden joints. Unfortunately, the parts which had been fixed with nails are now lost and we can only assume their existence from the presence of a number of nails still in place. Our conservation intervention was focused on recovering the original joints efficiency by replacing the lost pegs and restoring the broken ones screw-driving internal pins therein. We tried to limit as much as possible the insertion of foreign elements which, due to their intrinsic characteristics, may seriously damage the wood inducing the formation of cracks. Taking as a reference the previous restorations steered towards ensuring mechanical strength to the artefacts, it may be noted that the metal plates fixed by more than one fastener performed better than seaming with single rigid elements (such as nails or screws) since these exercise mechanical strength in a restricted area, thereby provoking, in the course of time, the breakage of the original wood which is extremely fragile and dehydrated. The insertion of single pins was
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limited to the restoration of the original pegs made out of hard wood5 since the pin insertion allowed recovering the pegs efficiency (images 39, 40).
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We avoided as much as possible, using glue and wooden junctions, to join the various parts of the original framework6 as alien, not compatible or distinct whilst the fractures within a single element have been normally bonded with vinyl glues (image 41).
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The mummy was inside the sarcophagus and was overcrowd by cotton padding and wood shavings. During the operations carried out to find out a suitable package to safely transport the mummy to the laboratory, the above mentioned material was removed and we discovered that the cotton stuffing came from the interior of a red velvet pillow placed under the mummy during the previous conservation intervention, dating back to the beginning of the XXth century.
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The pillow was removed from the original position by a mouse: the rodent also damaged the mummy to build up its nest with cotton stuffing and bone fragments taken from the mummified body. The corpse of the mouse was also found under the sarcophagus. Once duly packed, the remains were taken to the laboratory, where the mummy was withdrawn from the bed containing it (images 42-45). To withdraw the mummified body from the bed we had to provide a harness in order to prevent the structural failure of the damaged parts of the corpse. The harness was made securing the corpse and the velvet pillow with some braids, using a Teflon needle. The
provided frame, moulded to include the shape of the mummy: this way it was possible to lift the corpse without causing any damage, as shown in the radiographies executed before and after transportation (images 46, 47). The mummy was "cleaned" using a micro vacuum cleaner to remove the dust on the surface whilst the ragged bandages and cloths were fixed with stitches. The survived cartonnage elements were removed and restored separately. The mummys safe withdrawal from the sarcophagus allowed us to better work on the sarcophagus, as illustrated previously. However, there still was the problem of the mummys conservation: the mummy was
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braids were then fixed to a specially

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structurally damaged and it was sensible not to put it back into the coffin without a proper support, which should have been suitable to enable the mummys safe withdrawal in the future without being too visible. A cast of the lower part of the mummy was necessary to make such support: the corpse had to be completely winded up with a transparent film protecting it from humidity (images 48-52).
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Then the lower part was covered with a nylon sheet and a canvas, both fixed to the structure though well adhering to the mummy. The nylon sheet was placed to make sure that the cast could be easily removed whilst the canvas would strengthen the plaster cast. Once obtained the shape of the body from the cast it was finally possible to realize the fibreglass shaped support required, which was drilled in order to allow air circulation. The holes are hidden by canvas coverage (images 53, 54). After cleaning the mummy and the cartonnage, the latter was fixed to the bandages as it was before the intervention (images 55, 56).
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Furthermore, some worm-holes were detected on the wooden parts of the container thus it seemed that the mummy was attacked by insects. In consideration of the above we planned to examine the corpse after removing it from the glass showcase. However, since we suspected putrefaction could be in process, we decided to execute some preliminary analysis. In November 2004, after taking the mummy inside the glass showcase to the laboratory, the whole was introduced inside an air-tight glass cabinet equipped with valves and air taps (image 58). After nearly six months, Prof. Minero and Prof. Maurino from the Analytical Chemistry department of the University of Turin, cooperating with our team of conservators, took the first sample of air from the glass cabinet (throughout one of the faucets),
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Egyptian mummy, Museo Archeologico, Imola At the moment1 we are working on a Roman age Egyptian mummy of a girl. The mummy apparently had serious conservation problems but, after an in-depth preliminary study, the problems seemed to be less serious than expected. Looking through the glass cabinet, the mummy seemed to be progressively degrading. Our intervention was steered towards finding out a specific and appropriate conservation metho-dology and was also the occasion to study the mummy under the archaeological and anthropo-logical point of view. In October 2003 the Museum Director of the Museo Archeologico di Imola, contacted our team asking to sort out a conservation problem with an Egyptian mummy formerly belonging to the Scarabelli collection. The mummy, which until recently had clearly visible golden areas on the face, at the time we were called looked dark, brownish and lucid and was also showing the signs of deliquescence. The glasses of the showcase containing the mummy, presumably dating back to the XIXth century, were misty and therefore it was difficult to inspect the archaeological finding (image 57).
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the second sample of air from the glass showcase containing the mummy (drilling a port on the rear part of the glass showcase), and a third sample of air from the laboratory environment (images 59-62). Thanks to the analysis, we ascertained that the glass showcase containing the mummy was no longer air/water-tight, despite the glass silicon seals since the warm holes enabled air circulation and humidity as well.
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As a consequence, the showcases misty glasses were due to condense phenomenon and therefore, since the showcase was no longer efficient, it was necessary to replace it. The chemical analysis performed by Prof. Minero and Prof. Maurino showed characteristic markers of Creosote, probably used as a pesticide and antiseptic during previous conservation interventions. Creosote is a hazardous cancerogenic substance which had to be appropriately treated and efficiently confined within the new showcase; with the aim to minimize the risks related to this substance and to other hazardous products used in conservation in the past, it would be sensible to have some official directives requiring atmosphere control in the museum environment. In order to avoid biological and chemical risks for the personnel, we decided to drill a few ports on the wooden parts of the showcase in order to proceed with the washing of the mummy showcases atmosphere by means of an autoclave, alternating vacuum cycles to clean air input (image 63). After opening the glass showcase, we could see that the mummy had a brownish lucid colour partly hiding the gilded parts, once clearly visible (images 64, 65). The girls head was disjointed from the body and, between the head and the neck, there was a cloth pad obstructing the occipital hole. The above mentioned gildings were mainly visible on the forehead, on the teeth and possibly on a pad within the mouth cavity (image 66). Lifting the green cloth laid on the corpse as a result of the previous conservation intervention7, we found out some other gilded areas on the breast, the abdomen and the pubis (image 67).
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Near the feet and the head some bitty hair is visible at the showcases bottom and over the green cloth. Some white particles deriving from the showcases interior peeling deposited and adhered to the skin, which was slightly deliquescent, sticky and soft (image 68). The rupture of the right arm in the area centred around the omeral joint had been repaired by means of a little greenish pin and the arm was laid on a piece of wood. The ercolation of the brownish-lucid substance on the body caused the adhesion between of the arm to the wood as well as of the corpse
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to the pillow on which the corpse was lying down. We noted the leg fractures in the area centred around the knees, put back in anatomic position during the previous conservation intervention. Inside the glass showcase there were four bottles containing, according to the labels, calcium chloride and synthetic camphor. Nearby such bottles the decorative cord has faded, uniformly and therefore independently from the content of the bottles whilst the original hue of the most distant parts is in perfect conditions. The radiographies revealed serious damages to the skeleton and the presence of pins
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which have been used for hairdressing and to repair the omeral fracture (images 69, 70). For instance, we took into consideration the possibility to keep the mummy in inert gas atmosphere (Nitrogen) to protect it from microrganisms and parasites; in such case it would have been necessary to check the presence of anaerobic bacteria, which could be dangerous in this kind of environment (image 71).
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The biological analysis performed8 showed absence of fungi and anaerobic bacteria alive and a normal presence of aerobic bacteria on the green cloth while they were absent on the surface of the corpse (image 72). It may be noted that if the substance taken from the corpse of the mummy contaminated the culture of bacteria taken from the green cloth, these would not survive. This information was a key-factor to be considered for the design of the new showcase: as the air chemical analysis, this particular data enabled our team to understand that the archaeological finding was already treated with preservatives commonly used as pesticides as well and also had antiseptic properties. As a consequence, treatment and conservation in inert gas atmosphere was considered not necessary. Even under the operational point of view, the absence of pathogen bacteria was a guarantee of safety for those operators treating the mummy and such condition simplified working procedures.
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Our conservation activity was limited to the removal of the parts of cloth which covered the corpse as well as of the white fragments detached from the old showcases interior which adhered to the mummys skin and to the detachment of the mummy from the green cloth pillow and of the arm from the piece of wood. Finally, the corpse has been placed on a stretcher lined with a sterile double fibreglass net layer (images 73, 74).
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At the moment1, while waiting for the new showcase, the corpse is kept inside a Plexiglas cabinet with climate control (18-20C; 50-55 % Relative Humidity) (image 75). There are no items similar to the aforesaid mummy, in terms of conservation parameters required, at the Archaeological Museum of Imola. In the case of mummies, it is necessary to design a specific container for the conservation of archaeological findings requiring particular attention. It is actually necessary to conciliate the complexity deriving from conservation needs, design costs, realization and museum management. Having analysed the conservation environment adopted by different museums worldwide to preserve their mummies, weve been able to find out different parameters, which do not depend exclusively on the climate area in which each museum is located. In the course of this study we evaluated the museum environmental conditions, the microclimate inside the museum and the macroclimate outside, the number of visitors in relation to
the museums dimensions and fruition capacity, the conditions in which the item is exposed and finally the problems which apparently determined the worsening of the mummys conditions. For the new showcase we also took into consideration some variables, such as durability of the materials to be used for the showcase and their suitability for the proposed solution. Last but not least we examined the context in which the showcase should be fitted, under the aesthetical point of view. Hence, the options polarized towards a showcase with aluminium framework, wood lining and stratified glass including UV filter film. It will be possible to control the climate parameters inside the glass showcase throughout the specially provided instruments; in case of imbalance exceeding the safety limits, it will be possible to intervene for corrective action. A further campaign of analytical analysis9 on the mummy turned out to be extremely interesting as identifying some of the materials within the archaeological findings.
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Of particular note was the X Ray-Fluorescence (XRF) portable instrument, which requires no sampling and is therefore a non-invasive and non-destructive analysis. Throughout this technique, it was possible to obtain some more detailed information on gold, which turned out to be particularly pure (images 76, 77). Chlorine and Potassium signals were often detected as well, suggesting the use of chlorides during embalming operations or afterwards, for conservation. At the moment further analysis throughout gas chromatography has been undertaken to identify the organic substances of the brownish-lucid layer on the mummys surface and to verify the presence of henna or other dyes used for hair colouring. Radiocarbon dating of the cloth found at the base of the skull will provide further details on the age of the archaeological finding and will improve our knowledge on the Egyptian embalming techniques. Some anthropological studies and analysis carried out by the academics10 of the
University and of the Anthrpological Museum of Turin, also relying on various analyses, still have to be completed. The results of the aforesaid studies, together with other information relating to the preservation and conservation of this particular mummy will be presented at the VI World Congress on Mummy Studies, which will be held in Lanzarote (Canary Islands) in February 20071. Conclusions These three cases are certainly significant however we could narrate about many others, revealing some embarrassing anecdotes. As an example, during the performance of conservation activities on a mummy belonging to the Civic Museum of Asti11, we detected some damages which were probably imputable to the former owners or to the museum conservators who tried to withdraw the amulets from the corpse without the necessary care. Thanks to the XRays analysis, the missing parts of broken amulets exposed in the Museums showcase were found inside the mummy. Hopefully, conservation may help us understanding as well as enhancing our knowledge as no conservation intervention can leave knowledge aside. In the near future, the sarcophagus belonging to the Narni Museum as well as a mummy - not belonging to this institution which has already been studied by the academics of the University of Pisa from the anthropological point of view, will be the occasion for new studies steered towards an in-depth knowledge of this archaeological finding, considering that many coffins were re-used in the past. Even in this case, an interdisciplinary approach will be necessary to obtain reliable scientific results12 while coordination is essential to properly use and elaborate the information available.
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Acknowledgements We would like to thank the following people and institution for making some aspects of our work possible: Dr. Guido Rossi Archeological Museum of Genova Pegli Dr. Caterina Longo Civic Museum of Merano Dr. Laura Mazzini & Dr. Daniela Picchi Civic Museum "Scarabelli" of Imola Ms. Melanie Zeffirino (translation) and Ms. Carla Gori (paging)* Endnotes
1. The present article was presented at the EITEC Workshop (Encontro International de Tecnologias Aplicadas Museologia, Conservacao e Restauro), 19-20 October 2006, Coimbra, Portugal. 2. Dr. Valeria Cortese - Torino. 3. Compare the construction technique of the fibreglass tray described in relation to the case of the mummy belonging to the Museo Civico di Merano. 4. The use of screws is certainly less stressful than employing nails, which have to be inserted with a hammer, involving a serious trauma for the layers of plaster and paint. The damage is particularly serious when single nails are used whilst the appliance of plates fixed by means of more than one fastener is less invasive. 5. When it was necessary to replace a missing peg into the original housing, the new peg has been made out of Robinia wood a species which did not grow in ancient Egypt having similar mechanical stress performance to the Nile Acacia and other hard woods usually employed to make pegs. Furthermore, this type of wood is absolutely recognisable and therefore distinct for the typical fluorescence to UV light. 6. The original technique required the union of structural elements throughout pegs which were sometimes totally hidden in the wood thickness and
sometimes placed diagonally so that the head was visible. All the slots were filled with plaster (containing iron oxides and gypsum), which was often applied on the surrounding area and, more frequently, was the preparatory layer for the tempera decoration. 7. During a previous conservation intervention, the corpse was recomposed on a green velvet pillow with a decorative cord. A green cloth was also laid on it to cover nudity. 8. Biological analysis has been performed by Dr. Daniela Riccio (ALCHIM S.a.s.) coordinated by ADAMANTIO S.r.l.. 9. Performed by ADAMANTIO S.r.l. 10. Performed by Dr. Boano, Dr. Fulcheri, Dr. Grilletto, Dr. Carnazza, Dr. Bresci, Dr. Meaglia, Dr. Barbero and Dr. Rabino 11. Compare in bibliography "Museo Archeologico di Asti: La collezione Egizia" pag. 43. 12. Compare in bibliography "Sarcofagi della XXI dinastia (CGT 10101-10122)"
Bibliography
1. E. Leospo (ed.); Io vivr per sempre Storia di un sacerdote dellantico Egitto. Tormenta Editore, Genova (1999) 2. G. L. Nicola; Restauro di opere restaurate: problematiche di intervento in due casi limite. Proceedings of XIX International Conference "Science and Cultural Heritage" Bressanone (Italy) 1-4 July 2003, Arcadia Ricerche, Padova (2003) 3. E. Leospo (ed.); Museo Archeologico di Asti La collezione egizia. Ages Arti Grafiche, Torino (1986) 4. G. Fornaciari, A. G. Naccarato, F. Mallegni; Autopsia per una mummia. Archeologia Viva Anno XIII n 44 MarzoAprile 1994 - Giunti (1994) 5. A. Niwinski (ed.), G. L. Nicola, T. Radelet, G. Laquale; Sarcofagi della XXI dinastia (CGT 10101-10122) Ministero dei Beni e de delle Attivit Culturali, Torino (2004) 6. A. M. Donadoni Roveri; Passato e Futuro del Museo Egizio di Torino. Allemandi & C., Torino (1989) 7. G. L. Nicola (ed.); De Gypso et Coloribus. Celid, Torino (2002)
*Article submitted to EITEC 2006
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Prof. GIAN LUIGI NICOLA

NICOLA RESTAURI S.r.l - Italy www.nicolarestauri.it Contact: nicolarestauri@tin.it In 1966, after completing his studies in visual arts, Gian Luigi Nicola graduated at the Accademia Albertina of Turin and was awarded with professorship one year later. Since then hes been working with his father, not only in the restoration of paintings but mainly specialising in conservation of archaeological findings of various materials such as wood, stone, plaster, and clay (particularly from Egypt) requiring treatment in situ. In 1988 the experience of all members of the Nicola family merged into the new-born NICOLA RESTAURI S.r.l. Gian Luigi Nicola is one of the Technical Directors in-charge, by virtue of the great experience acquired working with the Egyptian Museum of Turin and a number of Italian Archaeological Museums for which he restored so many artefacts, including more than 200 old Egyptian wooden sarcophagi, nearly 900 ceramic vases and handicrafts, stone monuments and almost all the statues of pharaohs and gods held by the Egyptian Museum of Turin. In 1975 and 1983 by appointment of the Egyptian Government, he drew up two preparatory projects for the conservation of the Tomb of Nefertari and, in 1992, he was invited by the Egyptian Government, to participate to the international conference on the Sphinx conservation project, being one of the 16 members of the international team of experts working on this goal. Last but not least, since 1998, Gian Luigi Nicola is Professor of conservation and training at the Academy of Fine Arts of Turin, for the BA and MA degree courses in Conservation Studies.
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Dr. MARCO NICOLA

ADAMANTIO S.r.l. c/o CNR-ISTEC Italy www.adamantionet.com Contact: nicola@adamantionet.com Marco Nicola represents the third generation of a family of conservators. He took an honours degree (110/110) in chemistry at the University of Turin in 2003, presenting his final dissertation on Protein-based media identification and ageing in Art. In 2005 he started his Science and Material Technology PhD, working on the bio-susceptibility of restored materials. On February 2005, with his friend Dr. Admir Masic, he founded ADAMANTIO S.r.l., a start-up hosted by University of Turin and CNR-ISTEC, carrying out specific projects relating to conservation, including scientific analysis and researches focused on preservation and restoration of cultural heritage. As Board Director and Conservation Scientist in charge of research and conservation projects, Marco Nicolas professional experience in conservation ranges over a variety of subjects, including artefacts and monuments of architectural and historical interest, archaeological sites, mural paintings, oil and tempera paintings on canvas and wood panel, book and paper conservation, as well as stuccoes, stone, wood, terracotta, mosaics, enamels, metals and archaeological findings such as mummies. He performed some interesting analysis and research campaigns focused on material identification, dating and damage assessment thereby providing advice on conservation strategies as well as analysis driven to identify and eventually carry out the most appropriate treatments required. Since 2004, he has been cooperating with the family company, NICOLA RESTAURI S.r.l., as R&D Manager in-charge of chemical and scientific analysis for conservation projects and activity.
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MATERIALS USED IN THE CHINESE TEXTILES

from the National Museum of Art of Romania
ILEANA CRETU MIHAI I. A. LUPU
This paper presents concisely the results of the microchemical analyses made on Chinese embroideries and costumes, dated 18th 19th century, from the collections of the National Museum of Art of Romania, conserved in the last 40 years. We consider this important for the conservation domain because information about the Chinese original textiles techniques is difficult to find (the Chinese websites are restricted). The references regarding the ko-ssu technique indicate only the general materials without details regarding the genuine technology. Chinese textiles, historically well known, raise many problems due to the materials they are made of: very fine dyed or undyed silk, adhesive of unknown nature, paper metallic threads of different qualities, a different way of weaving and pigments used for decoration of tissues. These kind of items were sometimes decorated with pigments used without a protective coating. This caused important damages: the decorations depicted with blue, brown or violet pigments were lost together with the tissue. The most interesting technique is the imitation of metallic thread using paper, red ochre (bolus similar with that used for Byzantine icons), metallic sheet and varnish. Because of this technique, which includes paper and a binding material - both of them degradable by water - it is not possible to hydrate them by immersion or wet cleaning. This type of thread was used even in Europe during the 16th century for not very expensive textiles: "the Cyprus thread". Is there any connection between them? How big was the importance of the Silk Road during eastern European history? By comparison with similar European materials, Chinese ones indicate a different behaviour which requires different conservation techniques. Acknowledging this, we chose different methods of conservation in order to achieve the best intervention possible. Introduction The National Museum of Art of Romania (MNAR) has a very interesting collection of Extreme Oriental Art. A number of 12 textiles, Chinese and Japanese costumes and embroideries from the 17th-19th century have been conserved. The oldest of them is a Chinese embroidery made with gold gilded threads twisted on silk (Table 1 - No. 8). The biggest Chinese embroidery from the MNAR collection dates from 1823 and it was made for a Buddhist Temple using red silk for the ground and gold gilded threads of silk (Table 1 - No. 11, image 1). 19th -20th century costumes are made in ko-ssu technique, some of them embroidered and some others painted (Table 1 - No. 3). The Extreme Oriental textiles came to Romania starting with the 18th century, brought by Armenian merchants, and became part of private collections, some of them being used like garments or decorative objects. The conservation - restoration of this particular kind of objects raises problems because of the lack of information regarding their original technique and materials. Results and Discussion: Table 1 shows the similarities between the type and quality of the materials used in both costumes and embroideries.
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ILEANA CRETU and MIHAI LUPU
Table 1
No.
Object
Embroidery China, 19th century Embroidery China, 19th century Imperial Ceremonial costume, China, 19th century Imperial Ceremonial costume, China, 19th century Imperial Ceremonial costume, China, 20th century Jacket China, 20th century Imperial Ceremonial costume, China, 19th century Embroidery China, 17th century Waistcoat China,19th century Kesa Japan, 19th century Embroidery China, 19th century
Inventory
94335 /945 23120 /590 22560 /47 22561 /48 22978 /448 108020 /1003 66438 /865 22568 /55 22841 /326 82495 /928 23377 /247
Original Techniques and Materials

Embroidery made on silk, with silk and gold / bolus-red ochre / twisted paper / silk core. Silk twisted on small wood sticks Embroidery silk ground with silk
2 3 4 5
Silk tissue with silk and gold / bolus-red ochre / twisted paper, 3 layers / silk core Embroidery made on silk, with silk and gold / bolus-red ochre / twisted paper / silk core Embroidery made on silk, with silk and gold / bolus-red ochre/ twisted paper / silk core Repairs made with cooper threads / silk Embroidery made on silk, with silk and gold / bolus-red ochre / twisted paper / silk core, starch Embroidery silk ground with silk and gold / bolus-red ochre / twisted paper / cotton core Embroidery made on silk, with silk and gold / bolus-red ochre / twisted paper / silk core Embroidery silk ground with silk and gold / bolus-red ochre / twisted paper / cotton core Embroidery silk ground with silk and gold / bolus-red ochre / twisted paper / cotton core Embroidery silk ground with silk and gold / bolus-red ochre / twisted paper / cotton or silk core / repairs made with cooper threads / cotton
6 7 8 9 10 11
a. The silk ground and the ko-ssu technique are made only with silk; after the 19th century satin was also used for the embroideries. b. The specific metallic thread used for decoration was made using gold varnished sheet, set on red bolus (red ochre), probably with the help of an unknown adhesive on paper, generally twisted on silk or cotton. The paper may have up to 3 layers and the bolus is very thin, similar with the one used for icons. The gold sheet has different qualities and thicknesses. The pigments and dyes could not be identified by microchemical analysis. c. These gold gilded threads are used for
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imperial symbols - the dragons, which are embroidered or weaved. In the first case, the threads are fixed using a very fine uncolored silk. d. Unknown dyes were used for the silk threads. Costumes and Embroidery particularities: a. The costumes have three different kind of metallic threads: the first one for decoration, the second for diagonal strips of the ko-ssu technique and the third for the sleeves and the collar. The last one is made in the same technique, but it is twisted on a 1-2 mm
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Image 1. Chinese Embroidery, 1823 (inventory no. 247/23377). The biggest embroidery from the MNAR collection, made for a Buddhist Temple using red silk for the ground and gold gilded threads of silk.
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Image 2. Imperial Ceremonial costume, MNAR, China, 19th century (inventory no. 47/ 22560). Simple weaving and pigments used for decoration (Table 1 No. 3)
thick paper instead of a silk core. Thus, it is less resistant. b. The sleeves and the diagonal strips are made using a metallic thread on paper, very well twisted, which has the role to keep the warps inclined to 45 degrees, corresponding to the Chinese typical ko-ssu technique. c. The embroideries have only one kind of gold gilded thread, twisted on silk core. Embroidery No. 8 (Table 1) is also made with silk twisted on cellulose material, probably cotton. d. The costumes are made using extremely fine, well twisted silk for the warps and thinner wefts. These are almost untwisted and not very well pressed on the warps, to keep the same general aspect of the tissue when the metallic thread is inserted. The warps and the wefts could be dyed in the same colour or not. Sometimes,
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only the weft is brown, blue, red or yellow. e. The embroideries have the warps and the wefts dyed in the same colour, usually red or they preserve their natural colour. f. The adhesive used for fixing the linen of one costume (Table 1 - No. 3) is starch. g. There were three different adhesives used for the embroidery No. 11 (Table 1). These are products of unknown origin and insoluble in water. The original techniques and materials, together with the repairs, are responsible for the typical deteriorations: - The loss of textile materials because of black, brown, blue or violet pigments painted directly on the fibbers;
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Image 3. Imperial Ceremonial costume, MNAR, China, 19th century (inventory no. 47/ 22560). Simple weaving, diagonal strips with metallic paper threads, gold and bolus-red ochre. (Table 1 No. 3)
- The ko-ssu technique where the warp is inclined to 45 degrees and different kind of materials used for wefts - silk and gold gilded threads on paper; - The fines of the silk thread which fixes the metal thread; - The use of synthetic dyes since the beginning of the 19th century, extremely unstable and dangerous for the silk (Table 1 - No. 11); - The former adhesives used in previous interventions. Other kind of degradations occurred due to the inadequate use, exposure and preservation: - The textile items brought to Europe were used for different purposes than the original ones. - The ceremonial costumes were made for one day use.
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- The huge embroideries were re-expose for very long time, vertically, after their repair. References
1. James C. Y. Watt and Anne E. Wardwell, "When Silk Was Gold: Central Asia and Chinese Textiles", Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, 1997 2. Philippa Scott, "Il libro della seta", Thames & Hudson, London, 1993 3. Ileana Z. Balta and Ileana Cretu, "Scientific investigation of metal threads from Romanian medieval embroideries", ICOMCC METAL 2001, Proc. Intern. Conf. on metals conservation, Santiago de Chile 2001, Western Australian Museum, Perth. 4. M. BraunRonsdorf, "Les tissues dor et dargent du moyen ge lpoque moderne", Cahiers CIBA 3: 2-16, 1961. 5. Vannoccio Biringuccio, "The Pirotechnia of Vannoccio Biringuccio: The Classic Sixteenth Century Treatise on Metals and Metallurgy", Dover Publications, New York, 1990.
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ILEANA CRETU
Contact: adileana@yahoo.com Ileana Cretu is an expert conservator at the National Museum of Art (MNAR) from Bucharest, where she has been working since 27 years. She is specialized in the conservation-restoration of Byzantine metallic embroideries. She is also lecturer at the Conservation Specialisation Center of the Ministry of Culture and Cults since 1993. She is involved in the research of textiles conservation, collaborating with scientists in projects presented in several conferences such as NATCC 2000 and NATCC 2002, ART 2005 and TECHNART 2007. Moreover, at the present she is preparing her PhD thesis with the subject "History of the repair of embroideries in Byzantine technique from Romania".
MIHAI I. A. LUPU
Contact: lupu@art.museum.ro Mihai Lupu is a conservator scientist at the Conservation Department of National Museum of Art (MNAR) from Bucharest. He has continuously worked in the conservation field since 32 years, performing research and acquiring experience in different materials such as metals, graphic documents, painting, mural painting and textiles. He collaborated on the analysis and conservation of the mural paintings from Agapia Monastery and several other painted monuments from Romania. The results of his research were published and presented at national and international conferences among which ART 1999, 2002 and 2005, Triennal ICOM-CC meetings in 1987, 1993 and 1996, METAL 1995 and 1998, etc. He was also member of the Artistic Components Commission, Ministry of Culture and Cults from Romania.
National Museum of Art of Romania Calea Victoriei 49-53, Bucharest Romania www.mnar.arts.ro Phone: 0040-21-313 30 30; Fax: 0040-21-312 72 25
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SAVING THE MATERIALITY AND SPIRITUALITY OF A LIVING CHURCH MURAL ENSEMBLE

Surpatele Monastery, 1706 ANCA NICOLAESCU AND SIMONA PATRASCU
case stud
ANCA NICOLAESCU and SIMONA PATRASCU
Introduction The conservation of the mural ensemble from the Surpatele Monasterys Church, carried out by Restauro Art Grup S.R.L. between 2003 2004, was a complex project due to the serious structural damages occurred during time. When the project started in 2003 the monument was very close to collapse. The multidisciplinary cooperation between different specialists like architects, engineers, art historians and conservators was, therefore, essential for safeguarding the monument and its authenticity. Due to the severe damage, the final aesthetical presentation was also a very important task. The church being part of a nunnery that still preserves its liturgical function, the aesthetical approach was chosen not only from the authenticity point of view but also with regard to the iconographic integrity of the whole ensemble. Passing through Time The first written testimony regarding Surpatele Church dates back to 1512, the founders at that time being boyars from the Buzesti family. In 1706 Lady Maria Brncoveanu - the wife of Constantin Brncoveanu prince of Walachia rebuilt the church and added around it all the necessary buildings for a nunnery following the typical Brncovenesc architecture. The typology of this style is represented by the trilobate plan, the enlaced tendency of the forms, the opened porch and the use of sculpted ornaments; this architectural style was established and spread during Brncoveanu times. The church was painted in the same period by four Romanian painters (Andrei, Iosif Hieromonah, Hranite and Stefan), which were following the new iconographical tendencies of that period: enriched iconographic themes and a narrative
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The church of Surpatele Monastery, exterior view
character of the compositions. The murals from Surpatele Monasterys Church represent a valuable ensemble from both technical and iconographic point of view. From the iconographic point of view, the depiction of the religious texts reveal in this period, beside their symbolic content, a profound human character; the compositions are represented with local details and in a vivid narrative way. From the technical point of view, the mural paintings were done in Byzantine a fresco method. It is known that the painters were apprentices of the Greek painter Constantinos, the initiator of the Hurez School, famous in the 18th century in Romania, due to the superior craftsmanship paintings made through out this centre of culture. This is the reason why the mural paintings survived while passing over many inauspicious events through time, which provoked severe degradation of the architecture ensemble and implicitly, of the mural paintings.
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SURPATELE MONASTERY
Inauspicious Events of the Monastery For a better understanding of the severe damages it was necessary to have a look at the important events which influenced the monument preservation during time. Therefore, information was gathered from the National Institute of Historical Monuments archive in Bucharest, an important research stage prior to any intervention and vital for good documentation, diagnostic and treatment decisions. From simple memories to detailed conservation assessments, the documents helped to trace the history of the monument and thus, the major facts which influenced its preservation. Three important moments which led to the successive degradation of the monument, have been distinguished. The first one took place in 1873, during the secularisation of the monasteries, when Surpatele was closed. During this period of almost 50 years, all the buildings ruined except the church and the tower which were used by the village parish. From existing documents (from 1907) it is known that the church was also in a bad condition, its damaged roof causing significant rain water infiltrations. The church was closed until 1928 when five nuns from Dintr-un Lemn Monastery, with the help of the Historical Monuments Commission, rebuilt the south wing and the monastery entrance in the same original Brncovenesc style, known from the works of some travelling artists from 19th century like Henry Trenk, Amadeo Pretziosi, Carol Pop Szathmary or the french August Lancelot. The next events were the earthquakes from 1940 and 1977, which together with the instable soil and the underground water action specific for the region, caused the major degradation of the monument.
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Images of the narthex's dome before the intervention

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In 1940 the church suffered severe structural fractures, which made necessary an immediate consolidation intervention. On this respect, the intervention at that time comprised the introduction of interior iron bends for structure stability, the reconstruction of the lost parts of the walls and the filling of the cracks interventions which survived until our project started. Actually, these interventions were only covering the real gravity of the damages. The earthquake from 1977 reactivated all the structural damages and created others, making necessary a rigorous consolidation intervention, which was finally done in 1980 after a project of Prof. Alexandru Cismigiu1. Thus, the monument was bent in an exterior consolidation cage, stopping the longitudinaltransversal fragmentation action which otherwise would have led the monument to inevitable collapse. Beside these structural interventions, the mural painting ensemble was never restored.
Degradation Causes and Conservation State Having in mind all the events the monument went through, we can state that the murals were in fairly good condition at the point of our intervention; the serious damages occurred mainly at the support level influencing the paint layer. The most important causes for the monument state of degradation were the natural calamities such as earthquakes and soil movements completed by the lack of maintenance especially during monasteries secularization times, when the existing records mention the missing roof and the bad state of the church. Secondly, the humidity (active in all its forms as infiltration, capillarity and conden-sation) and the improper previous interventions at the structural level (fillings in the cracks with cement mortars) were the factors that drove
Examples of previous improper interventions from different compartments of the church
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Altar - different stages of structural consolidation of the cracks and the interior iron bends from 1940. After removing the previous intervention (left), after structural consolidation (centre) and after filling in the cracks with mortar (right)
to its poor conservation condition. Fortunately, the painters used a very good technique learned at Hurezi Constantinos School, a Byzantine a fresco having an arriccio layer made from lime, sand and straw with a thickness of around 4mm and an intonaco layer varying in thickness from 0,3-1,5 mm, having in composition lime and inert materials like tow. This was the reason why the mural paintings eventually survived up to the moment of our intervention. Frightening structural damages were possible to observe only after the removal of the previous interventions, which were masking the reality. Critical cracks were discovered, running transversally and longitudinally at the vaults level; fissures, walls and arches displacements were visible both on vertical and horizontal, leading to significant detachments and losses of the painting in the adjacent areas. The alternation of the earthquakes movement had as result the displacement of the vertical structural elements and of those from the arches level. In this situation the technical
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building experience, the renders composition and the heterogeneity of the used materials are vital for the architecture survival. Therefore, at Surpatele Church, the earthquakes provoked arch fractures in all the compartments, the collapse of the triumphal intrados, wall displacements in the altar, at the west gable of the narthex and at the exonarthex vaulting level. Beside those structural damages, water leak and improper previous interventions determined the appearance of salts efflorescence (mainly at the northern vault, tower level and porch), flaking and losses of the paint layer. However, those were not causing any problems during the conservation treatment, appearing only on small areas and mostly superficial. Treatment Problematic The necessity of an emergency intervention was evident from the beginning, even if the architectural consolidation was solved in the exterior.
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The first stage of the conservation intervention comprised the mural painting protection, necessary for a safe structural intervention. Following the engineers' methodological strategy throughout their project, the murals were protected with Japanese paper, the detachments were injected and all the fissures were filled, in the areas were they were supposed to intervene. These preliminary operations were done in the entire church at the vaulting level, were the structural problems occurred, in order to protect the paintings from any unexpected situation. There were two kinds of structural interventions: injections under pressure using special inert cement with a very low percentage of salts and inclusion of steel reinforcement bars for bending the walls severe fissures. The injections were done at the vault level in all the church compartments, while the steel reinforcements were done only in the altar in the lower part of the vault and on the west gable, where the cracks were severe (20 cm). Our assistance comprised, besides the protection of the murals in the specific areas (with Japanese paper and carboxymethylcellulose - CMC) also the consolidation of the support detachments with PLM AL (a lime based injection material used especially for ceilings and vaulting due to its low molecular weight) which otherwise could have been detached during the process by the pressure. Placing the injection tubes during the filling of the cracks at a distance of 15-20 cm approximately was also part of our backing work. For the fissure bending, we were consulted to choose the less disturbing place to make the inlets for the steel bar insertions. Only after the completion of these entire preventive steps, necessary in order to assure the total protection of the mural paintings, the structural intervention could start. Without a very good cooperation between all
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Different damages at the arches level and the structural intervention

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SURPATELE MONASTERY
Cleaning stages. The good state of preservation of the surface can be seen after the cleaning process
the specialists involved in this operation and without planning ahead all the steps, the results could have been disastrous. The injection under pressure can produce displacement of the paintings or the material can flood on the walls even through very small fissures, leading to the loss of the paint layer. The structural consolidation started following a well-established project and it was assisted by restorers. During the injections, the whole church was supervised from both inside and outside checking the adjacent areas were the engineers were working, ready to interfere or
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to stop the operation in case the material was leaking out. Fortunately, there were no problems in the course of this process and the consolidation of the church structure was perfectly done from the interior as well. Having solved this serious structural issue, our proper restoration procedure could start with the usual methodological steps. Due to the high quality of the mural paintings we did not encounter any difficulties during the process. The paint layer being generally stable - only in few areas where salts crystallised forming white veils, paint flaking occurred - the cleaning was done using mainly paper paste as poultices with ammonium carbonate. For the areas where the paint layer was flaking, Japanese paper was used as cleaning compress, enabling the cleaning and fixation of the damaged areas at the same time. The adherent dirt was thus easily cleaned and at the same time a first slight fixation of the paint layer was done by gently pressing the area where the poultice was applied with a rubber roller. The chemical cleaning was completed, where necessary, by mechanical cleaning using wishab sponge. The cleaning revealed the colourful original paintings, which were impossible to distinguish for so many years due to the dirty covering layers. The analyses showed, as it was expected, that the pigments were the usual ones in the area during the 18th century: blue - azurite; red - cinnabar and minium; green malachite and earth green; yellow ochre; white lime and black wooden charcoal. Gold leaf was also used for the saints haloes, garments and some ornaments. Further, the fillings done prior to the structural intervention, using a lime sand mortar with different proportions and sand dimensions, had to be finalized.
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Narthex, the west tympanum before (up) and after the conservation interventions (down)
Narthex, the north apse, before (up) and after conservation interventions (right, down)
At this point, the final aesthetical presentation had to be established in order to decide the type of fillings to be employed depending on the damages such as big areas with support losses - especially at the bottom of the walls, and support lacunae - occurred within the paint surface. The final aesthetical presentation was again a challenge because the serious structural damage led to large support and paint loss and displacement of the walls. At the same time the church is a living heritage, which demands for complete iconographic representation; is not only a physical heritage with historic and artistic value but also a spiritual one. Thus, an intervention strategy had to be established for choosing the appropriate final presentation, able to comprehend both aspects without jeopardizing the authenticity of the murals. Therefore, during this stage art historians were consulted regarding the aesthetical and
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iconographic aspect and it was agreed that keeping the support lacunas at the archaeological stage could disturb the whole perception of the murals which otherwise were very well preserved. Willing to achieve the unity of the mural ensemble, we decided to treat all the support lacunas located inside the depicted areas using the same methodology: filling them at the paint layer level (using a lime/carbonate mortar) and reconstructing the image by tratteggio technique using a lighter hue, thus being easily recognizable from the original. The wall displacements were preserved exactly as they occurred, avoiding this way any misinterpretation of the original mural surface. Although even if they are perceived as damages, being the historical events witnesses, they are also part of the monument history and hence of its authenticity.
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SURPATELE MONASTERY
Different conservation stages of the Pantocrator in the dome of the narthex. After removal of the previous intervention (left, up), after filling in the gaps with lime mortar (right, up), after chromatic integration of the color layer (left, down) and tratteggio detail (right, down)
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Example of chromatic integration by velatura technique. Before (left) and after (right)
The paint layer lacunas were reintegrated using velatura method with neutral tonalities accorded with the proximity colours, following the simultaneous contrast concept. Watercolours were used for the whole retouching treatment due to their easy reversibility for fresco technique and their resistance in time. Conclusion As expected, the final results of the mural ensemble conservation recovered the initial chromatic harmony and iconographic unity leaving readable the action of time but at the same time making the church capable to participate in the everyday liturgical services with its murals. In 2004 the Romanian Cultural Minister awarded the conservation project from Surpatele Monastery with the price Vasile Dragut2 for the unusual difficulty degree of interventions (for this type of monuments) and the exemplar appropriateness of both the technical solutions related with the monument state and the remarkable quality of the aesthetical final presentation, which redeemed the mural ensemble unity.
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Acknowledgements This project, that started as a challenge for us, grew to be our first example of good cooperation between all those involved, starting with the expert conservator Silviu Petrescu, the devoted conservators team Teodora Poiata, Alexandru Minculescu, Catalin Dumbrava and Andreea Banea among others the architects, art historians, engineers, and last but not least, the nuns community which supported all our decisions during this time.
Notes
1. Eminent engineer and professor at the Architecture University from Bucharest, recognized due to his numerous original consolidation concepts used on monuments. 2. Price awarded yearly by the Romanian Ministry of Culture to important heritage conservation projects.
Photos by Serban Bonciocat and Anca Nicolaescu (2002-2003)
Images after the intervention: narthex, north-west view (left), the south apse of the narthex (right) and the nathexs dome (down)
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The vault of the altar (up) and the murals of the narthex (down) after the conservation treatment
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SURPATELE MONASTERY
ANCA NICOLAESCU
Contact: ancanicolaescu@yahoo.com Anca Nicolaescu is a conservator specialised in mural painting. She obtained a diploma in Conservation of Archeological and Museum Patrimony in 1995 at Spiru Haret University and a Painting Conservation diploma at the National Art University in 1999, in Bucharest. She continued her studies with a Master in Conservation within the same University. In 2005 she received the specialist restorer certificate from the Romanian Ministry of Culture. She has worked in several national and international conservation projects, among which the Jampa Lhakhang Project with Tibet Heritage Fund, in India Ladakh (2006 - 2007), Bukhara RSF (Restaurateurs sans Frontieres)- UNESCO Project in Uzbekistan (2005) and the Restoration of the Phoebe Traquaire murals project, Edinburgh, Scotland (2004). Between 2004-2005 she was part of the international RSF team, working in Turkey on the conservation of Byzantine icons and church furniture. She presented the results of her work in several national and international conservation conferences, workshops and exhibitions.
SIMONA PATRASCU
Contact: simona_kp30@yahoo.com Simona Patrascu is a conservator of mural paintings and one of the co-founder of Restauro Art Group S.R.L. conservation enterprise. She graduated from Spiru Haret University in 1995, specialising in Ceramics, Glass and Metal Conservation. In 1993 she also started the conservation courses at National Art University in Bucharest, so that three years later she obtained the degree in the Conservation of Mural Paintings. Since 2000 she is a member of the Romanian Artists Union, Conservation Department, becoming in 2001 a member of its professional commission. In 2005, when the Romanian Ministry of Culture started to attest the conservation specialists, she was atributed the "Restoration and Conservation of Mural Paintings" specialist diploma. Beyound her experience within Restauro Art Grup, she was involved in important conservation projects of mural paintings such as the UNESCO site at the Probota Monastery (1998). Since 1994, she has been working on works of art such as Byzantine wooden icons, Persian ceramics, polychromatic sculptures and easel paintings.
Anca Nicolaescu and Simona Patrascu, together with the expert restorer Silviu Petrescu, founded Restauro Art Grup S.R.L. in 2000, a conservation enterprise accredited by the Romanian Ministry of Culture. The enterprise has run several conservation projects for important historic monuments in Romania, among which the conservation of the mural ensemble from the Surpatele Monastery (2002-2003), the a fresco mural painting conservation from the Church of Jgheaburi Monastery (2003-2004) and the conservation of the exterior a fresco murals and original renderings from Coltea Church (2006) .
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educatio
This permanent section is dedicated to Education and Training in Conservation and Restoration, which we consider an essential and actual issue in our profession. Thus, in each number of the magazine we randomly pick a country from around the world, review and describe its training in conservation to the best of our knowledge, listing the institutions in chronological order. We are aware that education in this field is still recent in many countries, that it has a fast development and evolution in others and that there are multiple models of training. Many countries have already a solid tradition in education and training while others are just starting to have their first university courses in Conservation. In this section we present the readers a review of the existing multiple choices on a given country. The section is divided in two main parts: the recognised and the unrecognised training. Although these criteria can be subject of intense discussion, we find support on the international accepted criteria such as those of E.C.C.O. (European Confederation of Conservator-Restorers Organisations) among others. Thus, for example, a course may be classified as recognised when their trainees are recognised by their national associations, have a university level or equivalent, a specialisation, etc. When a school is classified as non-recognised we are not making a judgement of value, but we only indicate that its degree is not enough to achieve, by international standards, the professional level of conservator-restorer. In case you are part of the staff of a school or University that offers training in Conservation and Restoration and you would like to include your school in our magazine, please contacts us by sending an email to: general@e-conservationline.com.
THE NEVER ENDING STORY OF CONSERVATION
EDUCATION IN PORTUGAL
CONSERVATION EDUCATION IN PORTUGAL
Porto
Portugal is a small country in south-western Europe. Being one of the oldest European countries (1128) and having led the World Discovery throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal is a rich country in Cultural Heritage. Higher education in Portugal is structured in two systems: the university and the polytechnic system. Until very recently, the university granted an initial 5-years long course denominated "Licenciatura". The polytechnic system was slightly different, granting an initial 3-years degree called "Bacharelato", after which the student could attend 2 more years concluding a "Licenciatura bi-etpica" (in 2 phases). After this, any student could pursue his training making a 2-years master degree and/or a PhD. However the Bologna process came very recently to change this panorama. Basically the "Bacharelato" and the "Licenciatura" disappeared and another initial 3-years long course was created, called Bachelor or "Licenciatura" (named after the former degree).
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Lisbon
Tomar
Higher education training in conservation and restoration in Portugal is very recent. It started with the technical course of the now extinct Jos de Figueiredo Institute (IJF) in 1981. Two new courses emerged in 1989: a 4-year "Bacharelato" at the now also extinct "Escola Superior de Conservao e Restauro" (ESCR) and a 3-year "Bacharelato" at the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar (IPT). In 1998, the first "Licenciaturas" appeared at IPT and at the New University of Lisbon (UNL).
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RECOGNISED CONSERVATION TRAINING
INSTITUTO POLITCNICO DE TOMAR (IPT)

Campus Tomar Quinta do Contador - Estrada da Serra 2300-313 Tomar
Portugal
www.ipt.pt
(Portuguese only)
Text based on the information provided by Dr. Joo Paulo Coroado - Head of the Conservation Department - and staff during our one day visit at IPT
INTERNAL STRUCTURE
Coordination
Joo Paulo Coroado Joo da Cunha Matos
SHORT HISTORY
The Department of Art, Archaeology and Restoration (DAAR) of IPT was established in 1987 and started by teaching 2-years specialisation courses - Courses of Specialised Higher Studies (CESE) - which were intended to complement a previous training. In 1989, DAAR started to teach a 3-year Bacharelato degree, which students could complement with the CESE to obtain a Licenciatura equivalence. In 1998, DAAR moved forward to implement a two-stages Licenciatura degree in Conservation and Restoration. More recently, the department changed its name to "Department of Art, Conservation and Restoration" (DACR) and adopted the Bologna process.
Practical Conservation Courses

Carla Rego Conservation of Paintings and Sculpture Cludia Falco - Conservation of Paintings and Sculpture Fernando Antunes Conservation of Furniture and Woodcarving Jos Silva - Conservation of Furniture and Woodcarving Fernando Costa - Conservation of Stone Ricardo Tries Conservation of Ceramics Aida Nunes Conservation of Graphic Documents
General Courses
Joo Coroado Materials and Environmental control (coordinator professor) Joo da Cunha Matos History (coordinator professor) Fernando Salvador Architecture and Representation Methods Miguel Cabral Moncada Expertise and Cultural Assets Teresa Cunha Matos Art History (professor adjunto) Teresa Desterro - Art History Fernando Larcher History and Heritage Law Madalena Larcher History Antnio Joo Cruz Methods of Examination and Analysis Joo Antunes Chemistry (professor adjunto) Click here to see a complete list of the teaching staff
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ADMISSION
At the moment, there are 40 places for the Bachelor in Conservation and Restoration. At master level, there is a maximum of 10 places for each specialisation. The admission is centralised and is done by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education.
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The IPT Laboratories of Conservation: Ceramic (left), Painting (centre) and Stone (right)
SPECIALISATIONS
The department offers several specializations in 2 cycles: bachelor (180 ECTS) and master (120 ECTS). The Bachelor (BA) offers a generalist training. The students start in the first year with conservation of stone materials and throughout the second and third years they are introduced to other areas (2 per semester): ceramics, woodcarving, furniture, sculpture, paintings and graphic documents, respectively. The Master in Conservation and Restoration (MA) has 2 different profiles: Movable Heritage and Integrated Heritage.
ceramics and graphic documents. It also disposes of an x-ray room, a chemistry laboratory and a shared photographic studio with the Photography Department. The conservation laboratories have the regular conservation equipment, including an anoxia chamber. The chemistry laboratory is equipped with a Raman spectrometer and shortly, it will be able to provide X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) and micro-Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy analysis.
PUBLICATIONS
The department does not have any publication but all the student projects are available for consultation in the university library. The students are also encouraged to publish the results of their work so they get used to the high standards of the professional journals and other scientific publications.
LABORATORY EQUIPMENT
The department has spacious and equipped laboratories for each specialisation: conservation of stone, furniture and woodcarving, metals, sculpture, paintings,
The DCR-UNL Laboratories of Conservation: Graphic Documents (left), Painting (centre) and Furniture (right)
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IPT Furniture laboratory (left), Chemistry laboratory (centre) and the Library's reading room (right)
Talking to Students
Ana Flix is attending the third year of the bachelor. She was happy to share with us her personal experience at IPT: "I think conservation is a very interesting field and as Im from Tomar, for me it was a natural choice to study here at IPT. I also considered studying in other schools but none interest me as much as this one because I wanted something more focused towards the practical side of this profession. I want to continue my education with a master because the bachelor is simply not enough. After this, I would like very much to work in a museum. During my training, I liked very much conservation of paintings but now, on my final
project, I am going to focus on the conservation of furniture." Concerning the implementation of the Bologna Process, Ana says "I think I preferred the system we had before because there were 5 years of "Licenciatura" plus other 2 to continue with the master; now we only have a total of 5 years, including the master." Rute Marques is a student in the second year of the Bachelor. At the time of our visit at IPT, she was spending extracurricular time on the conservation laboratory. She also believes students need a great deal of practice to become good conservators and that 4 hours of classes per week, per specialisation are not sufficient to become a good specialist: "preBologna system was better because it offered the opportunity to acquire more practice before starting to work in conservation."
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Pedro Fernando is a student in the fifth year his last year of study, him being part of the last generation to attend the pre-Bologna "Licenciatura". He is specialising in conservation of sculpture. After the graduation, he wants to acquire some work experience and later to make a PhD in collection care or management of cultural heritage, probably abroad. (in Portugal it is possible to move forward to PhD in case you have a preBologna Licenciatura in certain conditions, such as having an average grade of more than 16 - in 20).
Dr. Joo Paulo Coroado is the Head of the Department of Art, Conservation and Restoration of the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar since 2003. By profession, he is a Geoscientist, receiving his Master Degree in Geochemistry and his PhD in Geosciences at the Aveiro University. He is now preparing his aggregation title, studying degradation mechanisms, conservation strategies and raw materials provenance of ancient inorganic non-metallic materials, with special focus in ceramics, glass and mortars (mural painting). To our interview initiative, Dr. Coroado responded with an invitation to visit the Department and he kindly replied all our questions during our one day visit in Tomar.
About the Bologna Process, he believes that "in theory it can be a very good thing but practically it may not work for conservation, just as it doesnt work for other areas such as medicine or architecture. I think they are taking away 2 years that are very important to consolidate the concepts that we are being taught. In my time we were already complaining there were too few practical hours but now they have even less. We had about 6 hours per week while they have only 4" (per specialisation). Asked if he would prefer to practice conservation abroad rather than in Portugal, Pedro replied: "in my opinion, we have plenty of work to do here in Portugal - each conservator has at least two lifetimes of work - but unfortunately we dont have the necessary funding for it."
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I think it can be said that IPT is the oldest Conservation course still running. How do you describe its evolution since 1989? The evolution of the studies in Conservation and Restoration on the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar started on the academic year 1987/88 with the Higher Specialised Study Courses (CESE), in "Art, Archaeology and Restoration". The Ministry of Education authorization to teach the "Bacharelato" was given in 1989 allowing the course of Technology in Conservation and Restoration to start in the same year. In 1998, the Polytechnic system implemented the second cycle that granted the "Licenciatura" degree and the course was designated in two cycles in Conservation and Restoration. Since then, the course had four
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Interview with Dr. Joo Paulo Coroado
reformulations. The last one was authorized by the Ministry of Education, by the decree n. 875/2005 (2 series), maintaining the two cycles of 3 plus 2 years respectively. In 2006, the "Licenciatura" was adjusted to the Bologna requirements. The Master in Conservation and Restoration, already authorized by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, is going to start on the next academic year allowing a more consistent and suitable training of the conservator-restorer. How did your department managed the implementation of the Bologna process? The Bologna process transition has already started and the students are already on the third year of the Bachelor. The Master in Conservation and Restoration will start next year. This master has two different profiles: Movable Heritage and Integrated Heritage. The main difference between these profiles is that Movable Heritage has disciplines such as Collection Management, Collection Preservation and Art Expertise while Integrated Heritage has other disciplines like Architectonic Heritage, Integrated Heritage and Alteration and Alterability. All the other disciplines are common. The students are also given the possibility to choose as optional disciplines the ones from the other Master profile which is an advantage for him/her. The second year of the master is dedicated to an internship and dissertation. Considering that by international standards, the minimum training to become conservatorrestorer requires 5 years, what is your opinion of this 2 cycle training? In fact, students can leave school after the Bachelor to integrate the labour market.
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Dr. Joo Paulo Coroado and our editor, Teodora Poiata in the Ceramics Conservation Classroom
The Bologna process allows them. However, we tell students that only the Bachelor is not enough to become conservator-restorer and we show them the need, the necessity to pursue the master degree. A bachelor in conservation and restoration will be prepared to deal with collections and practice preventive conservation; he/she will only be able to operate in works of art under supervision. I remember that when the Bologna system was being under discussion here at IPT, it was proposed to maintain the 5 years Licenciatura in Conservation but the proposal was not considered. Conservation is a field still far from having the necessary strength like other fields, architecture or medicine for example... The Department is running a pre-Bologna Master in Chemistry Applied to Cultural Heritage in partnership with the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Faculty of Science, University of Lisbon. How has been this experience and which is its future, now with the implementation of the Bologna process? It is going extremely well. This master has been already prepared for the Bologna system and it is designed for chemists and other people with a scientific background that are
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interested in Cultural Heritage to specialise, so they can apply science to conservation. It is not intended for conservators because it does not give a degree in conservation, although conservators can attend it. This master is coordinated by Dr. Antnio Joo Cruz, a conservator-scientist specialised in chemistry applied to cultural heritage, and it is taught in both Lisbon and Tomar, approximately half of the classes in each city. You are the Head of the Conservation Department. Can you tell us how did you achieve it? In fact, I started to collaborate with the department since 1990. In 1998 I became Professor and 3 years later a Full Professor. After that I was elected, naturally, by the Department Council, first in 2003 and once again in 2006. What are the requirements to become teacher at the Conservation Department? Our department is made of specialists with different backgrounds, in domains such as Humanities and Sciences and, of course, Conservation and Restoration. We want the best specialists and, when we don't find them in our own institution, trained by ourselves, we look for the best in the in the field. Apart teaching at the IPT, what other activities do you develop in your professional life? Besides IPT, Im also working as a materials researcher at the University of Aveiro and at the Technologic Centre of Ceramics and Glass (CTCV). The students work on real works of art during
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their training. What is their acceptance criteria and their origins? Indeed they do work with real works of art since their first year. We wish our students to gain as much practice as possible. Most of the pieces we work with come from private collectors, churches, museums and from the local administration. Does the Department charge for the conservation interventions performed? No, we dont charge for the work we perform, once the owners of the respective works of art accept the fact that we dont know when the intervention will be finished. We only charge for the costs of the materials and for the consumables. Is the Department a member of ENCoRE? No, not at this time, but we are very interested in becoming member of ENCoRE. We are going to apply for the membership very soon. After the students graduation, does the Department keep up with their further accomplishments in their professional lives? Yes, many of them return often to make analyses for works of art using the facilities of the department. We are happy to be able to help them after they graduate. Plus, as I already said, we are interested in keeping in the core of the department the best of the students that graduate at IPT. Many of them are undertaking PhDs in Conservation and Conservation Related fields right now. Personally, I think the enthusiasm and strength of the young professionals is a big advantage.
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UNIVERSIDADE NOVA DE LISBOA Faculdade de Cincias e Tecnologia

(UNL)
Campus de Caparica 2829-516 Caparica Portugal
entrance is based only on the academic merits of the candidate on a national basis. In the first years, DCR-UNL offered 15 places for admission - the same as ESCR but during the next years the number grew progressively so that today there are 25 places available each year.
www.dcr.fct.unl.pt
(Portuguese only)
INTERNAL STRUCTURE
Management Commission
Fernando Santana - Director of FCT-DCR-UNL Fernando Pina Coordinator of the CR Department Raquel Henriques da Silva
Text based on the information provided by Dr. Fernando Pina - coordinator of the Conservation Department - and staff during our visit at DCR-UNL
Collaborators in the Department's Establishment

Adlia Alarco Art History Pedro Redol Art History
SHORT HISTORY
The Department of Conservation and Restoration of the New University of Lisbon (DCR-UNL) was established in 1998, its origins coming from the former Escola Superior de Conservao e Restauro (ESCR), in Lisbon. ESCR (1989-1998) was an independent school which offered a 4-years "Bacharelato". The establishment of the Department was assisted by the UNLs Faculty of Sciences and Technology, in particular by the Department of Chemistry. The university reformulated the curriculum, added 1 year and established a complete 5years "Licenciatura". At the beginning, a transition plan of 3 semesters was organized for the students coming from the former ESCR, in order they to obtain the "Licenciatura".

Maria Conceio Casanova Conservation of Graphic Documents Ana Claro Conservation of Medieval Manuscripts Stephan Schfer Conservation of Paintings Micaela Sousa Conservation of Textiles Augusta Lima Conservation of Ceramics and Glass Sara Fragoso - Conservation of Metals
General Courses
Fernando Pina Principles of Chemistry, Laboratory Techniques and Safety Maria Joo Melo History and Techniques of Art Production (HTAP), Methods of Examination and Analysis (MEA) Antnio Pires de Matos - MEA, Ceramics and Glass Ana Isabel Seruya Cultural Management, MEA Maria Filomena Macedo Biodeterioration, Preventive Conservation Pedro Redol Art History Agns le Gac Drawing, HTAP Ana Claro - HTAP Rita Macedo Art History Catarina Villamariz Art History Mrcia Vilarigues - Physicist, Expert on Glass Rui Silva Materials Science (Metals) Click here to see a complete list including disciplines taught by professors from other departments
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ADMISSION
At the beginning, the university inherited ESCRs admission system which was based on specific pre-requisites. At the moment the university dropped this system and the
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DCR-UNL Laboratories of Conservation: Painting (left), Graphic Documents (centre) and Metal (right)
SPECIALISATIONS
Currently, DCR-UNL offers a post-Bologna education system: a Bachelor Degree ("Licenciatura") of 180 ECTS credits and two master degrees Master in Conservation and Restoration (MA) and Master in Conservation Science (MSc) of 120 ECTS credits. The bachelor degree is designed to generally introduce students to each specialisation, the ultimate choice of the student for one specialisation being made only on the master level. The final year of the master is dedicated to an internship that can take place in the university, in a national museum or abroad. At the moment, DCR-UNL offers the following specialisations: textiles, paintings, paper, metal, stone, ceramic and glass.
DCR-UNL strongly encourages students to study abroad through the Erasmus program, as others foreign students are welcomed to study at DCRUNL. Students from Italy, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Brazil, and from the United States have already studied temporarily here. It would be also possible for a foreign student to undertake the complete CR course, although this situation would be a premier.
The department includes spacious and well equipped laboratories of conservation of graphic documents, paintings, metals, textiles, ceramic and glass, but also laboratories for applied sciences, such as chemistry and biodeterioration, and a photographic studio. Apart the regular conservation equipment, the laboratories dispose of other equipment such as a light ageing chamber, a digital x-ray machine prototype
INTERNSHIPS, INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS
DCR-UNL Laboratories of Conservation: Glass (left), Textiles (centre) and Biodeterioration (right)
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Some of the available equipment in the laboratories of DCR-UNL
built by the department itself and an anoxia chamber which uses nitrogen extracted from the atmosphere. To perform chemical analyses, the laboratories are also well prepared - X-ray Fluorescence (XRF), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and a portable Raman Spectrometer equipment which can be complemented by that of the Department of Chemistry, if necessary.
PUBLICATIONS
DCR-UNL has published papers and reports on several occasions but does not have a periodic publication. However, the bachelor and master thesis are available for consultation on the University's library. Right now, the department is thinking to make them available also on the internet.
PROJECTS
One of the main projects undergoing at DCRUNL is coordinated by Dr. Maria Joo Melo and concerns the research of 12 illuminated manuscripts from the 12th century. According to Dr. Melo, "to identify the pigments as well as their composition, proportions and binding media, microsamples are collected under the microscope and analysed by different techniques. The manuscripts were analysed
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Dr. Maria Joo Melo, discussing her research concerning 12 illuminated manuscripts from the 12th century
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in situ for two weeks, using a portable Raman coupled with a microscope and are now being analysed by FTIR". At the moment, two master students are doing their thesis trying to reproduce the same pigments that were used in the manuscripts. The conservators, art historians and students involved in this project also organised children workshops and step-bystep workshops open to the large public. Micaela Sousa, the responsible for the textile conservation laboratory, presented us the results of some other undergoing projects, among which a new environmentally friendly technique for the cleaning of historic textiles. This technique uses liquid and supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) as dry cleaning solvent in order to remove dirt from the fibers. The results of this research were published in the Green Chemistry Journal: "The art of CO2 for art conservation: a green approach to antique textile cleaning", by Micaela Sousa, Maria Joo Melo, Teresa Casimiro and Ana Aguiar-Ricardo.
Another interesting project in which the department is involved, in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, concerns the study of pre-Columbian textiles, some dating from the 2nd century BC. The project, supervised by Dr. Melo, makes also the subject of the master thesis of Isa Rodrigues, who is trying to establish which dyeing plants were used on these textiles, by extracting dyes from microsamples and comparing them by HPLC with similar dyes she obtained from American and European flowers and plants.
Dr. Maria Filomena Macedo showed us the facilities of the biodeterioration laboratory, where the deterioration mechanism of several materials by biologic or physical agents is studies. The evolution of the samples inoculated with specific cultures is observed in order to fully establish the deterioration mechanisms.
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Interview with Dr. Fernando Pina
Restoration within the New University of Lisbon (DCR-UNL). In the beginning we took over ESCR's education system but over the years, we improved the programme and right now we have more practical disciplines even than the former school. Between 2002 and 2006 the university was evaluated by the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education and the results were very promising, but we are continuously trying to improve our department. Your university recently implemented the Bologna process. How was the transition managed by the department? In 1999, when we started this course, we knew that the Bologna process was coming and we planed everything to facilitate this transition. Basically, for us to implement the process was only to convert our own ECTS credits to those of Bologna. It was very easy to introduce it since we, and also the students, were already prepared for it. The Bologna process is a significant transition. Considering that by international standards, the minimum training to become conservator-restorer requires 5 years, what is your opinion about this 2 cycle training? I truly hope that all our students will continue their training to obtain the master degree. If they want, they can graduate the first cycle here and complete their education with a Master Degree somewhere else. If they prefer to stop after 3 years of study, they could still work in the domain doing preventive conservation. In my opinion, they will not be enough prepared to perform the job of a conservation technician, but preventive conservation is also very important
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Dr. Fernando Pina is the coordinator of the Conservation Course at the New University of Lisbon. Chemical engineer by profession, specialised in photochemistry, he is also teaching chemistry applied to conservation. He was enthusiast about our initiative, welcomed us to visit the Conservation Department and kindly responded to all our questions. The interview was carried out by Rui Bordalo and Teodora Poiata on 28 January 2008, at the UNL Conservation Department.
This conservation course has its origins in the former Escola Superior de Conservao e Restauro (ESCR). How do you describe its establishment and its evolution since 1998? Indeed, we inherit the background and the experience from ESCR. ESCR had good conservation training but the school was somehow isolated as is always difficult when there is no faculty to support a department. I discussed my opinion with the director of ESCR, Ana Isabel Seruya and with Dr. Adlia Alarco that their activity should be expanded, involving more scientists and applying different sciences to cultural heritage. In this way the department could grow and more student places could be created. This initiative finalised with the establishment of the new Department of Conservation and
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and in this way they could, for example, work in a museum without doing practical conservation. We always repeat to the students to complete the 5 years and we encourage them a lot exactly thinking on this issue. However, we planned our classes so we can give potentialities also to those people that decide to leave after 3 years. Otherwise, we would risk putting on the market a fellow that is not able to do anything in conservation. Can you give an insight into the Master in Conservation that your department is currently running? The Master in Conservation and Restoration is intended for hands-on conservation and virtually is the continuation of the first 3 years of study. Currently, there are 11 students undertaking this course, but there are 20 places available for this master degree as we expect the number of the students to grow in the next years. What about the Master in Conservation Science? Which is the difference between them and why such a division? It is what we call a "Master of Science" (MSc) and it started this year, as a collaboration between the Instituto Tecnolgico e Nuclear and our faculty. We had our first experience last year, but as the course was not publicised enough, we had few candidates. Next year we will promote this program more, as there are many students coming from scientific backgrounds that could be useful for cultural heritage, applying science to conservation. There are some rules for the admission to these master courses. In the first place, if a student wants to undertake the hands-on
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Dr. Fernando Pina and Dr. Antnio Pires de Matos in the DCR-UNL Biodeterioration Laboratory
conservation master, (s)he should previously accumulate the necessary credits from the first 3 years. This way we avoid having candidates without the necessary background to make conservation. On the other hand, a student that graduated our conservation course can at any time follow the Master in Conservation Science because (s)he already has the necessary preparation and background. For the moment, this is the system we thought best to adopt. We may change it in the future but from what Ive seen, there was no conservation student from our course that wanted to make the Master in Science. I have to confess that this system may not be in the spirit of Bologna but we do what we consider to be better. When are the students introduced to real works of art during their training? The students work on real works of art since their first year. We encourage as much as possible the practice as hands-on conservators during their training. Which are the acceptance criteria for the works of art?
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We accept works of art from everywhere, independently of their provenience. Normally they come from museums, private collectors or churches. Does the Department charge for the conservation interventions performed? The museums do not have to pay for the intervention nor for the materials but they do pay for the insurance of the objects. We work with national museums and on our turn we are paid by the state so it is normal not to charge museums for our work. The private clients pay all the costs that are involved: the materials, the work and the insurance. Do you encourage students towards publishing the experience accumulated during their training? Yes, we encourage them a lot because no matter how good is their work, it is not enough if it is not published. We are trying to publish our research in the good journals. In Portugal, 90% or more of the publications in conservation reported in the Web of Knowledge ISI* come from our department. The master students, the researchers and professors must publish their work but we also encourage students to publish as much as possible. Even more, a student, to obtain the maximum evaluation should publish at least one paper in the Web of Knowledge. For example, one of our projects, "The colour purple", made in collaboration with Joo Seixas de Melo from the University of Coimbra, was highlighted in Nature Journal (447/2007).
*For more information please visit: www.webofknowledge.com
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Is the Department a member of ENCoRE? Yes, the department is member of ENCoRE. We inherited our membership from the former ESCR which was a founding member. ENCoRE's membership is very important to us, not only because it is an international reference but also because it is a way of making contacts and to keep ourselves informed. Our delegate is Stephan Schfer. Do you keep contact with your students after they graduate? We keep contact with them. Many of our students are working in conservation and have their own studios. If they need to perform analyses, they can use our laboratories. Also, we encourage the students to work themselves with the scientific equipment; they already know how to use it. In these cases, they only pay for the consumables. You have a background in chemistry, how did you come to apply chemistry to conservation? It is strange but I got involved in conservation by two main reasons. First, because of my wife (Dr. Maria Joo Melo), who is also a chemist. She made a postdoc in conservation in Italy and since then we decided to change the course of our life. The second reason was that the FCT Rector asked me to do it. 10 years ago, when the department was established, a professor with some experience to help the Management Committee was necessary. I am a chemical engineer by profession, and i have continued my work - to teach and research in photochemistry - but I accepted this position because I like challenges.
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UNIVERSIDADE CATLICA PORTUGUESA Escola das Artes

Rua Diogo Botelho 1327, 4169-005 Porto Portugal
www.artes.ucp.pt
(Englush and Portuguese)
Text based on the information provided by Dr. Ana Calvo - Chair of Conservation and Restoration Department of the School of Arts
INTERNAL STRUCTURE
Coordination
SHORT HISTORY
The School of the Arts (EA) was created in 1996 with the Licenciatura degrees on Sound and Image, and Music. Later, the Art degree was added and was divided in two sectors: Art and Heritage, and Conservation and Restoration, this last being implemented in 2001. The Licenciatura degree in Conservation and Restoration was organized in 4 years: the first two years were general and last two were more specialised. After the implementation of the Bologna process the course was divided in 2 cycles: a 3-years bachelor (180 ECTS) and a 2years master (120 ECTS).
Ana Calvo - Coordinator of the Conservation and Restoration Degree Gonalo Vasconcelos e Sousa - Executive Coordinator

Ana Cudell Conservation of Contemporary Art Maria Aguiar Conservation of Paintings Salom Carvalho Conservation of Paintings Patrcia Mestre Techniques of Preservation and Conservation of Stuccoes Ana Loureno - Conservation of Polichromed Sculpture
General Courses
Victor Teixeira - History, Portuguese Culture Laura Castro Art History Jos Ferro Afonso Art History Arlindo Silva Drawing, Paintings and Sculpture Jorgelina Carballo Physics, Chemistry and Biology Lus Bravo - Imaging Lus Elias Casanovas - Preventive Conservation Maria de Jesus Monge - Museology Nieves Valentn - Biology Carmen Garrido - Documentation Ana Brito - Paintings Conservation Fernando Silva Gusmo - Security Dalila Rodrigues - Art History Antnio Filipe Pimentel - Art History Jos Manuel Barros - Conservation Click here to see a complete list of the teaching staff
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ADMISSION
There is a limit of 30 students per year although in fact around 20 are admitted. The admission is subject to some pre-requisites that the applicants should fulfil. These basically consist in general and specific written comments, a test of manual dexterity and an interview.
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EA Laboratories of Conservation: Sculpture (left), Painting (centre) and Ceramics (right)
SPECIALISATIONS
During the initial 4-year program, there were available two specialisations: painting and sculpture-woodcarving. The student was choosing one of them for the last 2 years of the program. Now, after introducing the Bologna process, the specialisations are to be chosen at the master level and change every year. The Master of Conservation of Cultural Assets comprises the specialisations of Techniques and Conservation of Paintings, and Preventive Conservation. Next year, the specialisation in Techniques and Conservation of Sculpture and Woodcarving it is expected to start.
graphic studio for examinations in visible, grazing, ultraviolet and infrared light; an x-ray room; physics and chemistry laboratory; biology laboratory; an area for documentation and for reception of the artworks; a room for treatment of infestations and a quarantine room. Apart the regular conservation equipment, EA disposes of portable x-ray equipment, IR reflectography and portable x-ray fluorescence (XRF).
PUBLICATIONS
The School of the Arts has several publications and a magazine of decorative arts. Concerning the conservation department, a book entitled Uma introduao a Tcnicas e Conservao de Pintura was published by Prof. Ana Calvo in 2006. Also, the publication of a magazine is planned for the future.
EA facilities are very well equipped: 6 laboratories for practical work; a photo-
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PROJECTS
The School of the Arts created a Centre of Conservation and Restoration that promotes the study, the safeguarding and preservation of the cultural and artistic heritage. The Centre offers conservation services such as practical treatment, analyses, documentation and also interventions in situ. Among its activities, the centre has also organised conferences on subjects such as conservation of mural paintings or altars. The school has participated in International Congresses and summer campaigns in Spain, and also in a European project on the use of the Synchrotron for the analysis of works of art.
Talking to Eliana Gigante Amorim

Eliana is a studying conservation at the Portuguese Catholic University in Porto since 2005. At the moment, she is attending the third year of the bachelor in Art Conservation and Restoration and by June she will obtain her degree. She is dedicating all her time to prepare her thesis, trying to acquire as much knowledge as possible.
Why did you choose to study conservation? During secondary school I attended the general course of Arts and I realised that it was the area in which I was more interested and which I would like to continue. I realised as well that I wasnt the most creative person and so I should choose an Arts related area but that it should not imply the creation of new objects. I searched all the courses in Portugal and I understood that I was only interested in those of Art History and Conservation and Restoration. After seeing the curriculum plans of both courses, I found Art History, despite being very interesting, repetitive being based on history and philosophy. The area of conservation and restoration, however, contained several different and interesting disciplines. I was able to harmonize my taste with arts, studying them from an historical point of view, having direct contact with them and being able to execute manual work. Beyond that, I can contribute to the conservation of works of art which have always fascinated me.
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Eliana Gigante Amorim, student at EA-UCP, performing different conservation treatments: wood disinfestations (left), facing application (centre) and testing adhesives on inorganic materials (right)
Why did you choose EA-UCP over the other universities in Portugal? After I decided this was the area I was really interested in, I searched the courses in Portugal. From the three courses that exist, the curricular plan I liked most was the one from UCP. It has practical disciplines of conservation, drawing, sculpture and painting, and theoretical ones such as material study, biology, physics and chemistry, art history, decorative arts, philosophy, deontology, museology, methodology and photography among many others. I though, therefore, it would be the most dynamic and comprehensive courses of all. Which are the pre-requisites a student needs to be admitted? How stiff is the competition? Normally there are different phases for the prerequisites. They are not very complicated. Part of the admission consists in a test of general knowledge of Art History, from which it is previously chosen a period so that the applicants can prepare their study. On my case, for example, it was contemporary art. There is also a practical test to determine the applicants manual dexterity but it is not very complex.
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Fortunately the university has plenty of vacancies so the access is very easy. What are the costs involved to study at EAUCP? Are there any permanent fees? It is perhaps major inconvenient of this course. The fees are depending on the ECTS credits of the disciplines the student learns. As we have 30 ECTS per semester, the monthly fees raise up to 450-500. There are, however, scholarships from the State and the University to which financially challenged students can apply. What is your opinion about introducing the Bologna system in the Universities? As in any transition, initially it is very complicated. Both teachers and students have to adapt and its not always easy. Now that the transition process has ended, I think it works well. I was very satisfied that the course went through the Bologna process. I had the opportunity to start my university with a general course in an area I have chosen and to receive a diploma in only three years, which is always a stimulus. After that, it is convenient to make a specialisation, which can be on
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another faculty, inside or outside the country. I think this is very beneficial, it encourages the interchange between courses and it motivates students to continue to study. Are you going to apply for the master degree? I would like to attend the Master of Conservation of wood at UCP that should open next year. Im very satisfied with the course Im attending right now and if this Master will open it will be very good for me to complement what I have learned so far. I am interested in wood as conservation material and I would like to extend my knowledge in this specific area. Which are your plans after graduation? For now, my priorities are to study. Im still young and I would like to deepen my knowledge as much as possible before entering the labour market. In the future I would also like to work in conservation in an area devoted to the protection of heritage. I deeply regret the countless heritage losses which we daily witness, and I would like to do something against it. I would like to add that the university is not only about learning a specific area. We should open our horizons and try to grow as professionals but also as individuals. It is important to work on art objects but also to know how to compose and present a work, to research, to make oral presentations, to know to defend our opinions and our interests among many other things. The Conservation course of EA - UCP allows this professional and personal development.
We thank Eliana for her enthusiast collaboration. The interview was carried out by email, in Portuguese.
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This Conservation course is the most recent in Portugal, dating from 2001. What were the circumstances of its establishment by the Portuguese Catholic University (UCP)? UCP at Porto created the School of Arts (EA) in 1996 to offer studies on Art, Music and Sound and Image. Specifically, it was considered to integrate the area of Conservation and Restoration within the Art degree. For this purpose, a specific area was built to accommodate the department. The main objective was to fill the north of Portugal training gap and to assist the artistic heritage of the region, from which a considerable part is religious heritage. What are the requirements to become a teacher at the Conservation Department of EA-UCP?
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Interview with Dr. Ana Calvo

Dr. Ana Calvo is coordinator of the Degree in Art Conservation and Restoration of the School of Arts, Portuguese Catholic University. She graduated History of Art and later Conservation and Restoration of Paintings in Madrid. She owns a PhD in Fine Arts at the Department of Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Assets, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain. Dr. Calvo kindly accepted our invitation and responded our questionnaire. The interview was carried out by Rui Bordalo in Spanish, by email.
The requisites are the same as for other Universities. For the specific Conservation area, beyond teaching experience, we looked for teachers with the highest level of academic achievements and practical experience on their specialty. You are the coordinator of the conservation course. As a Spanish conservator, why did you choose teaching in Portugal? I was invited by the School of Arts Direction to start the Conservation area, to acquire the necessary initial equipment and to organize the core curriculum. And, when I saw the fantastic facilities that UCP had created for it and the enormous potential of this area on the region, I decided to accept the challenge. This collaboration with Portugal in conservation and restoration is being a magnificent experience for me. Apart from coordinating the School of the Arts, what other activities do you develop in your professional life? Apart teaching, I have always worked privately in painting conservation. I work as freelance for private clients as well as for institutions. I give classes and specialized courses in different Universities and centres, mostly at master and PhD level. The students work on real works of art during their training. What is the acceptance criteria of works of art and what are their origins? When the program for the different courses is decided, we establish which type of works of art and which problems would be suitable and interesting for the practice courses. We have protocols and agreements with different
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institutions museums, town halls, churches from where the works of art are selected to be conserved under the supervision of the teachers. The owners accept that the respective works of art are to be treated by the students and for this reason, they only pay the price of the materials required for the treatment. Does the Conservation Centre charge for the conservation interventions performed? CCR is a Conservation Center with many employed professionals, which works independently of the training course. The Centre organises different projects and for the requests received from private clients or institution, it establishes the methodology and budgets for the works of art. The services that are offered, but also the technical studies organised for other conservatorrestorers or enterprises, can be consulted on our website. When the course was created, the university implemented a 4-years Licenciatura instead of the normal 5 years of study. After the implementation of the Bologna process the university adopted the 2 cycles. How was this transition managed? With the Bologna course conversion, the new study plan was designed to offer a generalist conservation training on the most comprehensive way possible at Bachelor level (6 semesters), leaving the specialisations for the master level (4 semesters). We had also in mind the needs of the students in transition by making the necessary equivalences. Considering that by international standards the minimum training to become conservatore_conservation
restorer requires 5 years, what is your opinion of this 2 cycle training? According to the fact that one never ends to learn, if a student likes what (s)he studied, it is desirable to continue to the master level. In the first three years, the student can realise what conservation of cultural heritage consist of and if this is the carrier he/she really wants. Normally, if it is someone mature, who comes from the secondary school, (s)he will realise the necessity of the Master specialisation. According to the Bologna specifications, this first degree the bachelor - should prepare the student for the labour market. Hence, one holding a bachelor, prepared as a generalist conservator can take care of collections, and only one holding a specialisation a Master - will be able to conserve works of art. The School of the Arts is running a PhD degree in Conservation of Paintings. Can you tell us about it? As the stages were completed, the first students of the old program graduated, the masters were created and the need to advance towards research trough a PhD program appeared. The curricular part of the PhD has already ended and the first 10 students are now making their thesis. Some are teachers and students of the University while others came from Lisbon to undertake it. Their research subjects, what they are working on as well as their supervisors can be seen on our website. Part of them develop their research focusing towards new technologies, others are involved in the study of ancient or contemporary art techniques and materials and others in criteria of preventive conservation.
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Is the School of the Arts a member of ENCoRE? Being member of ENCoRE is a fundamental aspect for all the members of our Department. At the moment we have just sent all the necessary documentation to request the membership and we expect to become members in the near future. Does the Department usually follow the students on their professional life after they graduate? In many cases we do, because we provide them orientation on extracurricular internships in Portugal and in foreign countries. On their first job they also count on our collaboration and help. I would like to add that I am very proud to participate in this project which was possible due to the people that are making a great work (teachers, administrative and auxiliary staff) as well as of the results that are already showing (students accomplishments, research projects).
Ana Calvo and Gianluigi Colallucci at the "Technique and Conservation of Mural Paintings" conference organised by the Conservation Centre, in Porto, May 2004
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UNRECOGNISED CONSERVATION TRAINING
In Portugal there are some other training courses in conservation that do not offer a university level degree, or only offer short courses, with the duration of less than 5 years, thus they are classified as unrecognised courses, according with the international accepted criteria (such as those of E.C.C.O. among others). We wish to remind that in this section we are not making a judgement of value but we simply list all the available institutions. Thus, a course is classified as unrecognised when its degree is not sufficient to achieve, by international standards, the professional level of conservator-restorer.
The Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education has recently introduced a national scheme of technical education through the establishment of Courses of Technological Specialisation (CET). These are intended mainly for those people that did not finished the secondary education and normally involve partnerships of professional schools and higher education institutions. CET courses last 3 semesters (6090 ECTS credits) and grant a professional qualification of level IV. It should also be explained that there is a particularity in Portugals conservation
training, believed not to have a parallel in most European countries. The professional schools are an alternative to the regular secondary education and are intended to train technicians for the market in the most diverse fields (level III). The degrees from these schools are equivalent to the regular secondary education degrees, thus the students may apply to the university. Some of these schools are teaching Conservation, and although it is not an international recognized training level for a conservator-restorer, there are many individuals holding these degrees on the Portuguese market.
HIGHER EDUCATION
ESTAL Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Artes de Lisboa www.estal.pt
ESTAL is a private higher education school created in 1990. At the moment, this school offers a post-graduation course in conservation and restoration. This part time course working Friday evenings and Saturdays offers 42 ECTS and a certificate of completion. In order to be admitted, the candidates should have a Bachelor degree or equivalent. The course is intended for professionals interested on cultural heritage, such as conservator-restorers, archaeologists, architects, engineers, etc.
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Faculty of Human and Social Sciences (FCHS) - Universiy of Algarve (UA) www.ualg.pt
UA, following perhaps the last years tendency in Higher Education institutions, attempted to open a Bachelor in Conservation, with two different profiles: Built Heritage and Archaeological Heritage. This second profile was specifically designed for the conservation of archaeological materials and also to fulfil the lack of a similar training in this specialisation in the country. However, even if the course opened, there were not enough students to apply and the course remained in stand-by.
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Portucalense University (UP) (Porto) www.uportu.pt

UP is a private university located in Porto. Its Department of Education Sciences and Heritage offers three specialisation programs (60 ECTS): Preventive Conservation, Conservation and Restoration of Tiles and Ceramics. In order to be admitted, the candidates should have a Bachelor degree or equivalent, although no background in conservation is required.
Ricardo do Esprito Santo Silva Foundation (FRESS) (Lisbon) www.fress.pt

FRESS is constituted by the Institute of Arts and Crafts (IAO) and by the Higher School of Decorative Arts (ESAD). IAO in partnership with ESAD offer four CET courses (66 ECTS) on conservation and restoration of: Decorative Stuccoes, Mural Painting, Panel Painting and Wood and Furniture. Aside, IAO also offers courses on several artistic techniques such as fresco, gilding, polishing, and restoration of ceramics.
SECONDARY EDUCATION
Escola Profissional de Arqueologia (Marco de Canaveses) www.epa.pt
The Professional School of Archaeology offers a secondary level training of qualified professionals that [] are able to conserve under direct supervision of a higher technician. Training is offered in the following areas: tiles, ceramics and glass; archaeological and ethnographic assets; graphic and photographic documents; textiles; sculpture; painting; stone; mural paintings; metals and wood.
IAI Instituto das Artes e da Imagem (Porto) www.iai.pt

IAI was created in 1994 and, according their website, its objective is to promote Art with specialised artistic courses. In 2005, it started to teach the course of Conservation and Restoration of Heritage (level III). The available areas are: wood, stone, metals, textiles and painting.
rvore Escola Artstica e Profissional (Porto) www.escoladasvirtudes.pt

EA is a professional school dedicated to Arts. The school offers secondary level training in the area of conservation of paintings.
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EPRPS - Escola Profissional de Recuperao do Patrimnio de Sintra (Odrinhas) www.ep-recuperacao-patrimonio.rcts.pt

EPRPS, created in 1989 by the Town Hall of Sintra, has an Assistant Conservator-Restorer course with training in the following areas: tiles, wood, stuccoes, mural painting, metals and stone.
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ARP - ASSOCIAO PROFISSIONAL DE CONSERVADORES-RESTAURADORES DE PORTUGAL

Professional Association of Conservators-Restorers of Portugal
www.arp.org.pt contact: mail@arp.org.pt Established in 1995 13 specialisations 165 members 5 membership categories Access to university graduates only Member of E.C.C.O. INTRODUCTION TO CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION IN PORTUGAL
Text by Andr Varela Remgio Andr Remgio is member of the Direction Board of the Associao Profissional de Conservadores-Restauradores de Portugal since 2000. He is a conservator-restorer of sculpture and works as freelancer.
One of the first records of a restoration intervention in Portugal dates back to 1890 when the painter Manuel de Moura restored the XVIth century Flemish panel Fons Vitae. In 1896, the chemical engineer Charles Lepierre examined some cloth fragments found on a bishop tomb located on the Saint Mary Cathedral at Coimbra, starting in this way the scientific study of works of art in Portugal. In 1911, the then Director of the National Museum of Ancient Art (MNAA), Jos de Figueiredo established a restoration studio at the museum and invited the painter and Fine Arts professor Luciano Freire for the restoration of the museum artworks. In 1940, the same museum erected a building to house the Laboratory for Examination and Restoration of Works of Art. This building was one of the first in the world for that purpose.
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ARP
In 1965, the Laboratory is given autonomy and the Jos de Figueiredo Institute (IJF) is created with the objective to treat movable cultural and artistic assets own by the state, to assure research and to promote conservation and restoration. TRAINING IN CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION IN PORTUGAL In 1980, the decree-law n 245/80 established the definition of the carriers on conservation and restoration. This led the State to create a training course in this field. The course was established at IJF and at the Conmbriga Museum. This course, however, had no correspondence to the education system, which made the carriers in conservation to have an indeterminate state. In this context, the Ministry of Culture substituted this internal training model by another one integrated in the national Higher Education system, creating the Higher School of Conservation and Restoration (ESCR) at Lisbon and a 4-years bacharelato. The same degree, but of 3-years duration, was also created at the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar (IPT). Established in 1998, the European Network for Conservation-Restoration Education (ENCoRE) had ESCR as a founding member. In 1998, the New University of Lisbon (UNL) assimilated ESCRs course, transforming it into a 5-years Licenciatura. In the same year, IPT also established the same degree. Only then Portugal met the conditions that so many international documents defended, such as the one of Pavia, with the existence of higher education in conservation and restoration. In 2001, the third Licenciatura course
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Paulo Henriques, director of MNAA, Alexandrina Barreiro, president of ARP, Manuel Bairro Oleiro, director of IMC and Antnio Joo Cruz, scientific director of the journal Conservar Patrimnio, on the occasion of its fifth issue release. (MNAA, 18 December 2007)
opened at the Portuguese Catholic University (UCP), at Porto. With the PhD in Conservation at UNL and UCP, Portugal fulfils the most restrictive European guidelines. ARP The need to create a professional association of conservator-restorers in Portugal came with the graduation of the first bachelors (bacharis) in 1993 and the existence of some conservator-restorers trained abroad. Thus, in 1995, ARP was created. ARP has as main objectives the defence and promotion of the professional statute of the conservator-restorer in Portugal and the protection and safeguarding of Cultural Heritage. Since its creation, ARP has adopted and defended the definition of the conservator-restorer profession of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and the European Confederation of ConservatorRestorers' Organisation (E.C.C.O.) professional guidelines and directives. The defence and promotion of the training in Conservation and Restoration in Portugal
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ORGANISATIONS
at the highest level has been one of ARPs top priorities. Thus, two years after its creation, ARP approved new statutes in order to regulate the admission of members in the benefit of those with higher education training specifically in conservation and restoration. After the creation of the Licenciatura degree in conservation and restoration in 1998, ARP started to accept only these graduates or those with a bachelor obtained previous to this date. Although it is the only conservation association and is recognized institutionally by the State and by cultural institutions, ARP is an association of private law. This implies that it is not mandatory for a conservatorrestorer to be member of ARP to be able to work in this field. The association has now 163 members from which 151 are professionals and 12 are university students. From the professional members, 69 have the old bachelor degree, 81 the Licenciatura degree, and 1 has a PhD; at the moment, there are also 9 bachelors attending the Licenciaturas and more than 15 attending PhD courses. In order to fulfil E.C.C.O.s professional guidelines and the directives of the Joint Paper E.C.C.O./ENCoRE of access to the profession, ARP established 13 different specialisations: archaeologic materials; ethnographic materials; tiles, ceramics and glass; sculpture; photography; musical instruments; metals; furniture; paper, documents and books; stone; painting; mural painting and textiles. The organisation in specialisations was fundamental for the conservator-restorer to acquire better capacities in a specific area and therefore to achieve better Cultural Heritage safeguarding.
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In 1999, ARP participated with E.C.C.O., under proposal of its Italian congener Associazione Restauratori d'Italia (ARI), on the project Acteurs du Patrimoine Europen et Legislatin (E.C.C.O.-APEL). This project was concluded with the publication of a book and was based on gathering information concerning legislation and comparing the role of the conservator-restorer in several countries members of E.C.C.O. The success of this participation contributed to the acceptance of ARP in E.C.C.O. in 2001. Since 2002, ARP delegates have participated actively, integrating E.C.C.O. Committee. Since 2000 ARP has been working in partnership with several groups coordinated by the Portuguese Institute of Conservation and Restoration (IPCR) now the Institute of Museums and Conservation (IMC) on the development of the basis of the Portuguese Conservator-Restorer Accreditation System. The accreditation pretends to define, to regulate and to certify through normative instruments, the qualification of the professionals that work in the conservation field. An accredited conservator-restorer should be able to research, to teach, to coordinate, to prepare projects and to be responsible by the autonomous exercise of his/her specialisation. ARP is member of the National Council of Culture (C.N.C.), being represented on the section of Museums and Conservation and Restoration. C.N.C. is the advisory body of the Ministry of Culture. ARP has also participated as an active part in the Application Commission of Portugal to host the 16th Triennial Conference of ICOM-CC,
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Ancient Art (MNAA) collection. Although not very known, the relevance of this document is of the most importance for the history of conservation in Portugal. Besides advertising the members professional contacts on its website, ARP published for the first time in 2007 an annual directory with contacts and useful information. This directory was freely distributed by hundreds of cultural, religious and state institutions, museums and universities. This initiative proved to be of great importance and it had an enormous receptivity. Although ARP activities rely on the voluntarism of a limited group of members, the association seeks to achieve a bigger representation for the defence and the promotion of the conservator-restorer profession in Portugal.
The course Bibliographic Research, held at Centro Cientfico e Cultural de Macau (CCCM) in May 2007, given by the conservation-scientist Dr. Antnio Joo Cruz.
in 2011. The application is now on the final phase of evaluation. ARP promotes several activities that wish to contribute to the continuous professional development of the conservator-restorer, either for research or for conservationrestoration practice. On this direction, ARP has organised six training events: To Conserve in Archaeology, in collaboration with the Professional Association of Archaeologists (APA); Leadership; How to Write a Scientific Article; Bibliographic Research; Laboratorial Methods of Analysis of Paintings and Cultural Marketing. ARP also publishes the peer-reviewed journal Conservar Patrimnio which is one of the few journals exclusively dedicated to conservation and restoration in the whole world and the only one in Portuguese. The last issue of the journal was a thematic issue about the report made by Luciano Freire (1864 1934) on the conservationrestoration treatments of more than 300 paintings from the National Museum of
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The first three issues of Conservar Patrimnio, the biannual scientific journal of ARP.
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MODERN HERITAGE DOCUMENTATION FOR CONSERVATION AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION
an interdisciplinary approach and postcolonial perspective
by ANNARITA LAMBERTI
This article deals with approach to Documentation for Conservation, involving cultural and political aspects. In my argumentation the awareness of historical meanings of Urban Heritage is the basis for a culturally sustainable development. It occurs when urban communities are able to understand the meanings of all historical components of their townscapes and to "mettre en valeur" culturally and economically their urban "patrimoines", realizing an integrated cultural landscape. For this purpose, I propose a critical Documentation, which comes from an interdisciplinary research in the light of postcolonial studies. The focus of my article is Modern Heritage in the Mediterranean region, where Modern Architectural Heritage constitutes a system of persistences of colonialism, modernization and nation buildings. Analysing Modern Heritage in this area, in the light of postcolonial perspective, would permit to discover connected histories of responsibilities and sufferings, developing better relationships between European Union (EU) and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries and among the latters.
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ANNARITA LAMBERTI
Introduction The awareness of historical meanings of Urban Heritage is the basis for a sustainable urban development, grounded in the cultural framework of territory. The cultural sustainability of urban development appears when urban communities are able to understand the meanings of the historical components of their urbanscapes, and when they are able to "mettre en valeur" their urban "patrimoines"1. Therefore, Heritage Documentation for Conservation is necessary for urban planning and development, in order to regenerate Urban Heritage and include it in the living flows of urban life. For this purpose, it needs a critical Documentation, which comes from an interdisciplinary research system, bringing together Human and Social Sciences in order to investigate the layers of urban history and to elaborate strategies for future culturally sustainable development. 1. Territory memories and Urban Development Urban planning strategies and theories keep on identifying cities as cultural phenomena and considering their Heritage as the motor of their development, and of the global economy as well [1]. Contemporary urban economy is characterized by a growing demand of cultural products and experiences [2], and for more than ten years this cultural business sector has been estimated as one of
1 The reason to use these French expressions comes from the
need of pointing out the different epistemological positions of Anglophone and Francophone literature about cultural Heritage. While the former explores the ontologic dimension of cultural Heritage, the latter investigates the aspects of its national and nationalistic values and its economic exploitation.
the most promising source of employment, of opportunities and new transformations for urban condition [3]. Architectural Heritage plays an important part in this story. The restoration economy, based on the principle that the promotion of urban development moves from the regeneration of built and natural environment, has acquired the configuration of a great business, producing a strong relationship between public and private sectors [4]. Then, urban planning has to be interpretative planning inside this Heritage based-economic scenario. It has to realize a process of researching about the sense of place in urban territory, about the value of its Heritage, that has to be shared with local communities in a process of education and empowerment [5]. Heritage-based development strategies reveal the purpose to protect territories and local identities setting [6]. Heritage Documentation is on the basis of this process, it has to be part of strategies for urban development and planning, articulated in three logical and chronological moments: knowledge, conservation and exploitation. The epistemology of multiplicity [7] explains the link between territory memories and urban development. It performs the sense of documentation as the first step of cultural and sustainable development process. Assuming the complexity of a territory involves elaborating a development strategy that deals with this complexity according to a three-step conceptual itinerary: to know, to interpret, to inform. Turning to memories and legacies of past has to respond to and stimulate the sense of present, rediscovering the spirit of past in order to face current issues: it has not to be a mere act of remembering aesthetics. Turning to memories and then to Heritage must
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assume the sense of a fresh epistemology of development, commencing from the different layers that compose urbanscape, letting the cultural dimension of places emerge and rendering it an instrument of development. 2. Located memories and postcolonial perspective As to document Heritage is a way to re-read the past, then, Documentation is a manner to make historical research considering Heritage as a system of sources. Cultural Heritage is not an inert trace of past but a link through which an ensemble of History-Histories, narrations and memories come to the surface of the present epoch. Therefore, it is a system of evidences which needs examining and critically analyzing2. Architectural Heritage is regarded as an ensemble of four-dimensional archives, which match the three dimensions of the physical experience of space to the fourth cultural and psychological dimension of sense of place [15-17]. Urban Architectural Heritage is the lexicon of cultural discourse on urban communities history of consciousness. In urban spaces it identifies lieux de mmoire, that transmit legacies of past when milieux de mmoire wane [18]. Modern Architectural Heritage is the ensemble of traces of a kind of past that more than other kinds comes to our eyes place-like, inspiring new research and methodological trends. Since UNESCO has been starting to deal with Modern Heritage, it has called for an interdisciplinary approach, conjoining anthropological, geographical and historical insights , in consideration of its particular meanings, regarded as an ensemble of legacies of a History perceived as unlocked in the past we can know from tales of living
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testimonies and from the numerous still in operation traces in the built environment. Postcolonial Studies perspective permits us to re-think Heritage Documentation, regarded as a scientific discourse in the academic context, and to re-think its subject in this case the Modern Heritage and its political contents. The postcolonial approach is characterized by the ontological slant, that involves the reconfiguration of time and space of Western Modernity in the light of repressed and removed histories, cultures, bodies. The reemerging of repressed histories produces radical re-articulations of perspectives on cultural, social and scientific discourses, too. Interdisciplinary questions determine a reconfiguration of disciplines and knowledge: their borders become permeable and their languages are contaminated. In the light of this cross-disciplinary dimension, the subject of analysis assumes the role of witness. It is conceived as a complex, ambiguous and contradictory sign of historical and cultural phenomena, questioned in a process that is changing with time, just as its own meanings and interpretations, as well as the chronological and political hierarchy of its contents frequently fracture, its disciplinary paraments becoming more porous [20]. Modern Heritage is the witness of the Twentieth Century History, the epoch when
2 This is the heuristic position of scholars dealing with the
issues of Patrimoine and Heritage. Regarding the issue of Patrimoine, i.e. the French-speaking context, see Bourdin 1984, Choay 1992, Nora 1992, Poulot 1998. Instead on the issue of Heritage, i. e. the English-speaking context, see Lowenthal 1985; Boyer 1994, Ashworth and Graham 2005 [8-14].
3 I am referring to the ICOMOS-UNESCO-ICCROM seminars, held
in 1994 in Helsinki, and in 1996 in Mexico City. To reconstruct UNESCOs attitude toward Modern Heritage, see also Van Oers and Haraguchi 2003 [19].
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ANNARITA LAMBERTI
the frailties and aporias of our days are rooted. 3. Heritage and Urbanscape in the Mediterranean Region City as memory device My proposal is to think Documentation at urban scale, considering Heritage as part of the urbanscape. Urbanscape should be regarded as a text and every fabric as a syntactical element. This requires the synthetical approach of urban geography, based on an epistemological and methodological trinomial: Heritage - city (as phenomenon) - city (as heuristic instrument) [21]. City is a memory and identity device [22]: urban Heritage, as it is an expression of citys History-histories and memories, can be considered as an instrument for a critical process of remembering, that may involve the preservation, the deconstruction or the reformulation of different cultural layers of the city [23]. In my approach space is at the base of a visualisation practice of ways of thinking, feeling and interpreting the condition where we live. Observing the configurations that urban space assumes according to the landuse planning and the architecture, constitutes a strategy for investigating the sense of living, letting History and Geography perspectives come together, and freeing Social and Human Sciences research from the unilateral and progressive category of time. Dwelling upon place and spatial configurations that cultural phenomena assume, makes the researcher develop an inquiring dimension applying to grasp the dure of cultural phenomena [24] and enable him/her to acquire the rhythm of
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investigated subjects, in order to try to reconstruct the social logic of place and to reproduce the condition of a kind of historic present continuous. Architectures, lieux de mmoires [25], watch the social milieux, of those who built and inhabited them and, furthermore, they mirror eyes of social and political milieux of those who are currently looking at them and taking them into consideration. Modern Colonial Heritage in the Mediterranean Region The focus of my paper is Modern Heritage in the Mediterranean region. Here Modern Heritage is often Colonial Heritage. Historiography on colonialism, based on the tablissement patrimonial [26], has the aim of realizing an analysis that brings out connected histories between colonizers and colonized people, revealing an approach that avoids eurocentrism and the inflexibility of chronological and geographical frameworks, realizing a scientific investigation of a geohistorical subject commencing from its cultural and aesthetical phenomena [27, 28]. This kind of research needs undertaking multiplicity of scales of analysis and frequent scale changes, in order to point out translocal dynamics, and, dwelling upon micro-scales, in order to observe interactions among cultural, political and social phenomena in urban scenarios, both endogenous and exogenous ones [29]. This geo-historical approach of research fits the analysis of Modern Movement in urban planning and architecture, because they were conceived as universal/western instruments of territorial modernization, but they have revealed forms of cultural overlappings and metissage. This kind of architecture, born in
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Europe with the characteristic of internationality and exportability, considered ready to be implemented everywhere in the service of Empires and of their civilizing mission, has changed itself in contact with places of colonial space, assuming regional configurations [30-34]. Moreover, Modern Colonial Heritage is the evidence that the Westernisation project of the Other did not escape from a process of translation, appropriation and re-appropriation [35]. Regarding this issue, the Mediterranean context is a significant laboratory. The Mediterranean Region is a space of hybridization, where postcolonial narratives are emerging [36-40]. Here Modern Architectural Heritage constitutes a system of persistences, survivals of modernization and nation buildings, of imperialism and colonialism, and traces of a
repressed past. This is the case of Italian Modern Heritage, both at home and in colonial spaces, where the rationalist architecture is the evidence of the Italian colonialism and colonial responsibilities [4144]. The Modern Lexicon in Naples townscape suggests that its development process, during the 30s, has been linked to colonial spaces, since the city was regarded as the port of the Empire (Figure 1). 4. Colonial Memories between Naples and Tripoli Recently, Modern Heritage of Naples has been rediscovered and chosen to represent part of local memories by Gabriele Basilico and Olivo Barbieri for the photographic exhibition Obiettivo Napoli. Luoghi memorie immagini, set in Naples in the 2005. Then, their photos
Figure 1. The port of the Empire (elaborated by A. Lamberti, 2006). The black-and-white photo (by G. Parisio 1936, Archivio Fotografico Parisio Naples, published in Lucarelli F., ed., La Mostra DOltremare, Naples, Electa, 2005, p. 39), in the cartogram, shows the Sea Station of Naples, projected by arch. Cesare Bazzani and built within the plan of urban development implemented by the Fascist Regime.
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have become a permanent installation on the pier of Piazza Vanvitelli metro (Figure 2). In November 2005 the Municipality of Naples has presented the urban park of Mostra dOltre Mare to be listed in the Modern Heritage List. The Mostra dOltre Mare, like the whole architectural Heritage of fascist epoch that characterizes Italian cityscapes, can be regarded as persistences of silenced memories and histories, calling to be investigated.
Today, this recalled investigation as the regeneration of this Neapolitan Heritage should be linked to the rediscovery and regeneration of Modern Heritage in former Italian colonies, in Libya in particular, rereading and facing the colonial responsibilities through a cultural project at the Mediterranean scale and even beyond. A critical documentation on the Modern Colonial Heritage according to a translocal
Figure 2. Modern Heritage at the metro (Digital Photo Elaboration by A. Lamberti, 2005)
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approach, in order to reconstruct links among different places connected by colonial history, might be a way to face both responsibilities and traumas of this difficult Recent Past, moving toward a mutual possibility of encounter between the (ex-)colonizers and the (ex-)colonized people. In fact, it is important to pay attention to what is happening to the Modern Colonial Heritage in those Mediterranean countries which have been colonies of European Powers. What is going on might have geopolitical echos or significances. The urgency of re-examining traces of Recent Past comes from the political and cultural meanings they are currently showing. In March 2006, the Libyan leader Gaddafy has requested that Italy should make a significant act for repairing colonial crimes. This act has
been identified in the realization of a shoreline highway linking Tunisia and Egypt: i. e. the reconstruction of Via Balbia. This Heritage is an ensemble of legacies that mutually connect Italy and Libya, both in the past and in the present epoch, though in a different manner. Furthermore, this mutuality inspires the methodological connection between the interrogation of both past and present moving away from each other unceasingly, because at current time the traces of their co-presence are embedded in the urbanscapes. The Documentation process on this Heritage should be run by a team of Libyan and Italian scholars, creating a new dimension of encounter. Modern Colonial Heritage holds geopolitical and cultural contents that are currently urgent and plays an important part in the
Figure 3. Euro-mediterranean dialogue (elaborated by A. Lamberti, 2006) The photo, placed in the map on the Northern shore of the Mediterranean region (A. Lamberti, 2006) shows the current life and aspect of Stazione Marittima: the beauty of which needs rediscovering. The other one (by N. Tondini in Libia, Meridiani, no 123, 2003, p. 156), on the South-Western shore of the basin, effectively represents the process of translation and re-appropriation of the Italian Colonial Heritage in Libya.
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building of the European-Mediterranean arena. A critical Documentation on it might help the elaboration of culture-based policy just as heritage preservation politics and practices can be considered as practices of cultural policy and, regarding Modern Colonial Heritage in the Mediterranean Region, an expression of European-Mediterranean cultural policy and politics (Figure 3). In my opinion it is important to carry on the work begun by Euromed II Shared Heritage, but above all to carry it on in the light of fresh and critical openings. In the Mediterranean region Modern Colonial Heritage can be regarded as an aesthetical configuration of European-Mediterranean territory embedded in urbanscapes. Mediterranean urbanscapes represent European-Mediterranean geo-territorial
identity, elaborated in the postcolonial reading of their Modern Colonial Heritage. Conclusions Colonial Modern Movement traces, that still characterize the architectural syntax of urbanscapes in the North Africa, in the Middle East and in Dodecanese islands, are the landscape structures where to read geohistorical texts4 that narrate about the time when European societies were building themselves and their modernity. Colonies were laboratories for European modernity [50-52].
In the geographical literature the topic of the urbanscape as a geo-historical text has been treated by different scholars belonging to the New Anglo-American Cultural Geography [45-49].
Figure 4. Euro-Mediterranean cities dialogue (elaborated by A. Lamberti, 2006, from a EU map of the cartographic section of the Gateway to the European Union website: http://europa.eu/ abc/maps/index_en.htm)
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Today, transnational migrants, descendants of colonized people, individually enter the human landscape of the European Union and become part of it. Projects of preservation or regeneration of Modern Colonial Heritage seem to express a re-narration of colonial history, from the perspectives of colonized people and of those who have inherited their memories. In the Modern Colonial Heritage, the European Union may recognize an expression of the common Heritage that does not belong only to Europe, mirroring itself in the eyes of postcolonia, in the European-Mediterranean urbanscapes, inside itself in the human landscapes of European cities. A more widespread awareness of Modern Heritage quality, coupled to its historical meanings, would sustain the process of its involvement in living urban plots and, just as it happened in Tel Aviv5, inspire urban planning and touristic image. The case of Tel Aviv is emblematic. On the one hand it is the witness of the importance of artistic interpretation and representation as a form of communication of the Documentation results which move from artistic and historiographical sensibility to other than technical ones [53]. On the other hand it witnesses the importance of UNESCOs role and of the value of World Heritage nomination. It is crucial that UNESCO fosters surveys and researches on Modern Heritage in the Mediterranean region and the conditions for a wider information through artistic representations too, in order to impress both on opinion leaders and common people.
UNESCO should create a space of cultural and social fluidity at local scale with links to a translocal dimension, in order to connect groups, belonging to civil societies with different socio-political geometries in the Mediterranean region. Scholars, intellectuals, artists and common people might be the subjects of a Third Space [29] of Documentation/Education about Modern Heritage in the Mediterranean region, a Heritage so rich of cultural, political and economic implications. The realization of a Mediterranean Modern Heritage Tourist Route/Net would produce translocal relationships among the Mediterranean cities and support their urban economies. References:
[1] M. Carta, Next City, Meltemi, Roma (2004) [2] A. J. Scott, The Cultural Economy of Cities, Sage, London (2000) [3] J. Rifkin, The End of Work: The Decline of Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era, Putmans Sons, New York (1995) [4] S. Cunningham, The Restoration Economy. The Greatest New Growth Frontier, Berret-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco (2002) [5] M. Carta, Next City, Meltemi, Roma (2004) [6] M. Carta, Larmatura culturale del territorio, Franco Angeli, Milano (1999) [7] L. Sandercock, Towards cosmopolis. Planning for Multicultural Cities, Wiley & Sons, Chichester (1998) [8] A. Bourdin,Le patrimoine rinvent, PUF, Paris (1984) [9] F. Choay, Lallgorie du patrimoine, Ed. Du seuil, Paris (1992) [10] P. Nora (ed.), Les lieux de mmoire, Gallimard, Paris (1992)
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5 The White City of Tel Aviv has obtained the WH
nomination in the 2003 based on the II and IV criteria of the Convention on World Heritage (1972).
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[11] D. Poulot (ed.), Patrimoine et modernit, LHarmattan, Paris (1998) [12] D. Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1985) [13] G. J. Ashworth and B. Graham (eds),Senses of Place : Senses of Time, Ashgate, Aldershot (2005); [14] C. Boyer, The City of Collective Memory, MIT Press, Cambridge (1994) [15] Yi-Fu Tuan, Topophilia. A study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes and Values, Englewood, PrenticeHall (1974) [16] C. Schultz Norberg, Genius loci -Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture, Rizzoli, New York (1979) [17] G. J. Ashworth and B. Graham (eds.),Senses of Place: Senses of Time, Ashgate, Aldershot (2005) [18] P. Nora (ed.), Les lieux de mmoire, Gallimard, Paris (1992) [19] R. Van Oers and S. Haraguchi (ed), Identification and Documentation of Modern Heritage, World Heritage, UNESCO, papers 5 (2003) [20] I. Chambers, La sfida postcoloniale, Seminario di studi culturali e postcoloniali dei paesi anglofoni A.A. 2005-6, Universit degli studi di Napoli LOrientale, Naples (2006) [21] A. Lamberti, I linguaggi della geografia urbana. Tel Aviv tra arte e sviluppo urbano, Tesi di dottorato in Geografia dello Sviluppo, Universit degli Studi di Napoli LOrientale, Naples (2005) [22] C. Boyer, The City of Collective Memory, MIT Press, Cambridge (1994) [23] I. Chambers, Culture after Humanism, Routledge, London (2001) [24] A. Dupront, Lhistoire aprs Freud, Revue de lenseignement suprieur, (1968) pp. 27-63. [25] P. Nora (ed.), Les lieux de mmoire,Gallimard, Paris (1992) [26] D. Poulot (ed.), Patrimoine et modernit, LHarmattan, Paris (1998) [27] E. Said, "Culture and Imperialism", Chatto and Windus, London (1992)
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[28] S. Subrahmanyam, Connected histories: notes towards a reconfiguration of Hearly Modern Eurasia, in Lieberman V. (ed.) Beyond Binary Histories. Re-imagining Eurasia to C. 1830, The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor (1997) pp. 289-315 [29] S. Gruzinski, La colonisation de limaginaire. Socits indignes et occidentalisation dans le Mexique espagnol XVIe-XVIIIe sicle, Gallimard, Paris (1988) [30] S. Almi, Urbanisme et colonisation: prsence franaise en Algrie, Mardaga, Bruxelles (2002) [31] N. Szmuk,Batim mi ha-Koll, Keren Yehoshua Rabinovitz, Tel Aviv (1994) [32] M. Levin, White City. Iternational Style Architecture in Israel, Helena Rubinstein Museum, Tel Aviv (1984) [33] J.-L. Cohen, Monique Eleb, Casablanca, mythes et figures d'une aventure urbaine, Hazan, Paris (1998) [34] V. Colonas, Italian Architecture in the Dodecanese Islands (1912-1943), Olkos Press, Athens (2002) [35] I. Chambers, Culture after Humanism, Routledge, London (2001) [36] International Seminar on the Management of the Shared Mediterrannean Heritage, the 5th Conference on the Modern Heritage, Alexandria, March 29-31 (2005) [37] Do.co.mo.mo, nos 28-29 (2003) [38] A. Lamberti, White City Mediterranean Medina. Tel Aviv, The Mediterranean Medina, International Seminar IDEA-ICAR, University of Pescara, Pescara, June 17-19 (2004) [39] A. Lamberti, I linguaggi della geografia urbana. Tel Aviv tra arte e sviluppo urbano, Tesi di dottorato in Geografia dello Sviluppo, Universit degli Studi di Napoli LOrientale, Naples (2005) [40] J.-L. Cohen, Modern architecture in Morocco, Do.co.mo.mo, no 28 (2003) pp. 37-40; B. Aiche, Modern architecture in Algiers, Do.co.mo.mo, no 28 (2003) pp. 41-42 [41] G. Gresleri, P.G. Massaretti and S. Zagnoni, Architettura italiana doltremare, 1870-1940, Marsilio, Venezia (1993) [42] V. A., Metafisica Costruita, Touring, Milano (2002) [43] E. Lo Sardo, P. G. Massaretti, S. Raffone and Marida
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Talamona, Architetture italiane in colonia, Serie Conferenze 17, ISIAO, Roma (2005) [44] F. Lucarelli (ed.), La Mostra dOltremare. Un patrimonio storico-architettonico del XX secolo a Napoli, Electa, Naples (2005) [45] D. Cosgrove, Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape, Croom Helm, Beckerman (1984) [46] M. Dear, Postmodern Urban Condition, Blackwell, Oxford (2000) [47] J. Duncan, The city as text: the politics of landscape interpretation in Kandyan Kingdom, Cambridge Univeristy Press, Cambridge (1990) [48] J. Duncan, D. Ley (eds), Place/Culture/ Representation, Routledge, London (1993) [49] D. Gregory, Geographical Imaginations, Blackwell, Oxford (1994) [50] P. Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1993) [51] I. Chambers, Culture after Humanism, Routledge London (2001) [52] G. Wright, Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism, University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1999) [53] A. Lamberti, I linguaggi della geografia urbana. Tel Aviv tra arte e sviluppo urbano, Tesi di dottorato in Geografia dello Sviluppo, Universit degli Studi di Napoli LOrientale, Naples (2005) [54] H. Bhabha, Location of Culture, Routledge, London (1994)
Annarita Lamberti
Naples/Bergamo, Italy Email: annarita.lamberti@unibg.it
Graduated in Political Sciences at the University of Naples LOrientale, Annarita Lamberti completed her PhD in Development Geography in 2005, at the same university, dealing with cultural interpretation of urban development. She is an urban/cultural geographer, specialized in the South-Eastern Mediterranean cities with particular regard to the Israeli ones, and works on the cultural dimension of urban condition and experience. In the field of theorical research, her main interest is elaborating a methodology based on cross-disciplinarity, led to realize an osmotic relation between Social and Human Sciences, paying attention to artistic representations, such as literature, visual arts and architecture in the light of the critical openings of postcolonial thought. Currently Annarita is lecturer of "Territorial Processes in Asian Lands" at the University of Bergamo, Faculty of Foreign Literature and Languages. At the moment she is also carrying out research about Heritage and Identity based at Postcolonian Studies Centre at the University of Napoli LOrientale with a scholarship granted by CNR.
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the online magazine No. 3, February 2008

the online magazine

Becoming conservator Being conservator

EVENTS INTERVIEW ARTICLES

Conservation Education in Portugal ARP - Professional Association of Conservators-Restorers of Portugal

NEW WEBSITE CULTURAL HERITAGE CONSERVATION EVENTS

Screenshots of the Cultural Heritage Conservation Events website

Centro Cultural de Belm (2007)

Reviewed by Rui Bordalo and Teodora Poiata

GLASSAC March 2008

Building Museums February 2008

Illicit Traffic of Cultural Heritage in the Mediterranean Region

Masterclass on Ethiopic Bindings

No Museum Left Behind

19th Century American Cloth Binding

4th Ename Colloquium Between Objects and Ideas

Date: 14 March Place: Washington, D.C., Maryland, US

Radiocarbon and Archaeology

3D Colour Laser Scanning

XI Reunions Tcniques de Conservaci-Restauraci April 2008

Museums and the Web 2008

IAQ 2008 8th Indoor Air Quality 2008 Meeting

AIC 2008 Annual Meeting

AREAS OF PUBLISHING Conservation Treatment

PRESERVATION AND CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI

CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI

GIAN LUIGI NICOLA, MARCO NICOLA and ALESSANDRO NICOLA

CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI

GIAN LUIGI NICOLA, MARCO NICOLA and ALESSANDRO NICOLA

CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI

GIAN LUIGI NICOLA, MARCO NICOLA and ALESSANDRO NICOLA

CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI

GIAN LUIGI NICOLA, MARCO NICOLA and ALESSANDRO NICOLA

CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI

GIAN LUIGI NICOLA, MARCO NICOLA and ALESSANDRO NICOLA

CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI

GIAN LUIGI NICOLA, MARCO NICOLA and ALESSANDRO NICOLA

CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI

GIAN LUIGI NICOLA, MARCO NICOLA and ALESSANDRO NICOLA

braids were then fixed to a specially

CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI

GIAN LUIGI NICOLA, MARCO NICOLA and ALESSANDRO NICOLA

CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI

GIAN LUIGI NICOLA, MARCO NICOLA and ALESSANDRO NICOLA

CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI

GIAN LUIGI NICOLA, MARCO NICOLA and ALESSANDRO NICOLA

CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI

GIAN LUIGI NICOLA, MARCO NICOLA and ALESSANDRO NICOLA

CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI

GIAN LUIGI NICOLA, MARCO NICOLA and ALESSANDRO NICOLA

*Article submitted to EITEC 2006

CONSERVATION OF MUMMIES AND SARCOPHAGI

Prof. GIAN LUIGI NICOLA

Dr. MARCO NICOLA

MATERIALS USED IN THE CHINESE TEXTILES

MATERIALS USED IN THE CHINESE TEXTILES

ILEANA CRETU and MIHAI LUPU

Original Techniques and Materials

MATERIALS USED IN THE CHINESE TEXTILES

ILEANA CRETU and MIHAI LUPU

MATERIALS USED IN THE CHINESE TEXTILES