Page - 149 - in The Vienna Genesis - Material analysis and conservation of a Late Antique illuminated manuscript on purple parchment

Rabitsch, Malissa, Hradil, Erlach, Uhlir, Griesser, Hofmann 149 of copper in the parchment (0.57 wt%, EDX spectra are similar to spectra in figures 27 and 28). Sample Pe1, parchment from folio 22, page 43: Parchment sample Pe1, which was taken for comparison far off from the areas with silver ink, at the inner edge of folio 22, also showed a small copper peak in the EDX spectrum corresponding to 0.26 wt% copper. Samples from reference silver ink ST1: Surface analysis of the silver ink layers on the samples from the reference silver ink ST1 prior to cross sectioning shows that the ink consists of a mix of some silver particles, quite a lot of silicates and a few particles containing copper (Fig. 30 and 32). Cross section of P1 (ink ST1 aged) in figure 31 shows that the ink layer is quite different to that in the samples from the Vienna Genesis (figures 26 and 29) – very thin, with only a few silver particles (bright spots in figure 31) compared to the approximately 10 µm thick silver packages in the Genesis samples. The parchment contains no copper, the particles at the bottom of the parchment are most likely calcium carbonate. Similar results are found for samples P3 (ink ST1 unaged) and P2 (ink ST1 aged). Fig. 30: BSE image, at 150x magnification, of the surface of sample P1, silver ink ST1, parchment with aged silver ink on top. Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY 4.0