Raman Spectroscopy for the Material Analysis of Medieval Manuscripts

Abstract

Abstract This work gives a brief overview of the potentials of Raman spectroscopy, widely applied as a non-invasive and non-destructive spectroscopic technique for the identification of pigments and inks in manuscripts. Systematic studies on several ancient codices were performed for the material identification on Glagolitic, Greek, and Latin manuscripts. Raman measurements could be carried out in\xa0situ with the ProRaman-L-Dual-G of Enwave Optronics, USA, a fully integrated and portable instrument. One focus of such investigations is to identify the palette used for the numerous sophisticated illuminations present in many codices. Furthermore, many manuscripts are now suffering varying degrees of degradation due to the corrosive nature and color instability of many iron gall inks widely applied in the middle ages. The ability to identify an ink on an item as iron gall is therefore useful not only from a historical and curatorial perspective but for preservation purposes too (Jean and Brown, 2000).