Should Not Prints Be Buffered?

[jeffreyg]

The Dead Sea Scrolls are still around - those guys knew about archival processing!

 

[Ray Rogers]

Rolling Papers

The Dead Sea Scrolls are still around - those guys knew about archival processing!

That is interesting...
What sort of paper was that?
Where are they?
Are they on view somewhere?
How and by whom were they authenticated?
How old are they?
What condition are they in?

There are examples here of 1000 year old Japanese Washi
as well as some pretty old hemp paper from China (I think).

 

[Photo Engineer]

The Dead Sea Scrolls are probably one of the best known archaeological artifacts on the entire planet!

They are in tattered pieces about 1 cm square partly welded into their original scroll like form. They are being picked apart by experts and the pieces are being preserved then reassembled in as good a form as possible and then translated. They are so valuable that AFAIK, they are not on view. The authentication is clear and was made by a team of experts from all over the world.

They are well over 1000 years old!

However, they never went through a photographic process and therefore do not represent what a photo might do when kept.

The IPI is an excellent source of information and far better IMHO than the Wilhelm institute. Recent articles and papers by Jon Kapecki are useful to help in determination of print lifetime. His course on this subject is invaluable.

PE

 

[Ray Rogers]

There is not enough light.

I live in a cave and don't get out much these days.

I wonder about the material that Dead Sea "paper" was made from...
and the carbon dating results... as well as their exact location.

I too doubt they would be on display, but then again I have seen the Shroud of Turin!
And it seems they still can't come to a consensus on a date for that item.

I looked for LE data for RC vs Baryta but the best I could find was a note that the recommendations for residual thiosulfate in both baryta and RC papers were currently (2003) under revision. Other interesting things I turned up was:

a) RC papers were a product of war research.

b) Perhaps one of the first to come out against RC in favor of FB was a photographer in France (1977).

c) Standards will be using the designation LE-# where "#" represnts the number of
years of LE at a constant known temp and humdity
(23 C., 50% RH, dark storage)

LE appears (?) to mean the data is still "accessible"....

I found data on film base but I could not pin down any LE-#'s for paper base.

Sorry, I am giving up and going to sleep.

Ray

 

[Photo Engineer]

From my friend Wikipedia:

"The Dead Sea scrolls consist of about 900 documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in and around the Qumran Wadi near the ruins of the ancient settlement of Khirbet Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea."

Since these were found in several caves you might want to read up on them.

PE

 

[Ray Rogers]

Thanks! Robin, to the Bat Cave!

From our mutual friend:

"Dr. Trever, a keen amateur photographer, met with Mar Samuel on February 21, 1948, when he photographed the scrolls. The quality of his photographs often exceeded the visibility of the scrolls themselves over the years, as the ink of the texts quickly deteriorated after they were removed from their linen wrappings."

So maybe linen wrappings are the key to our archival needs too?
RC papers kept under glass have shown different problems than those simply exposed to air.　Maybe a semipermeable barrier is better than the other two extreams.

Anyway, Wiki reports that most are on parchment... in which case, it might not really be correct to call the scrolls examples of works on paper.

Ray