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Papyrus: Secret of the Egyptians
Although the making of papyrus as a writing support is almost 5,000 years old, not a single written description by the Egyptians exist to explain their process. Pictorial displays in tomb murals and...
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Making Papyrus in the Conservation Lab
Before we began treatment on the Book of the Dead of the Goldworker of Amun, Sobekmose papyrus scroll, the staff of the paper conservation lab decided to make our own papyrus sheets. As with any...
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The Egyptian Papyrus “Book”
Once a papyrus sheet was formed it was joined together with other sheets to form long rolls. The papyrus roll format dates back to ~3,000 BCE and there is little evidence individual sheets were ever...
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Pigments and Inks Typically Used on Papyrus
This is the third blog post on the Museum’s extraordinary New Kingdom papyrus, the Book of the Dead of the Goldworker Amun, Sobekmose. My colleagues previously posted blogs on what exactly papyrus is,...
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IR and UV Examination of Egyptian Papyrus
Following Rachel’s previous discussion on pigments and inks used in our Book of the Dead of the Goldworker of Amun, Sobekmose, I will begin here our discussion of the different examination and...
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Analyzing Pigments in the Book of the Dead Using XRF Spectroscopy
One of the many scientific analytical techniques used in art conservation is called X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy, or XRF. The Paper Conservation Lab here at the Brooklyn Museum is using this...
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Looking for Adhesives and Identifying Binders in the Book of the Dead Using FTIR
Another scientific analytical technique commonly used in art conservation is called Fourier-transform Infrared Spectroscopy, or FTIR. The Brooklyn Museum’s Paper Conservation Lab employed this...
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Radiocarbon (carbon-14) Dating of Book of the Dead of Sobekmose
Our research to further understand the Book of the Dead of the Goldworker Amun, Sobekmose continues. Carbon-14 (C-14) dating was one of the first scientific analytical techniques that we employed to...
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Lady Gautseshenu goes to the Hospital
Yesterday, a team of curators, conservators, and art packers and handlers took the last of our human mummies to North Shore University Hospital to be CT scanned. (See Lisa Bruno and Ed Bleiberg’s...
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Repairing the Book of the Dead
Repairing papyrus can be a little like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. In order to make sense of the many small pieces at hand, we take advantage of the various examination techniques we have here in...
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