no testing of materials of ink! .. oops

[Steven Avery]

no testing of materials, ink! .. oops


Report on the different inks used in Codex Sinaiticus and assessment of their condition
Sara Mazzarino
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/conservation_ink.aspx

The Codex Sinaiticus inks have never been chemically characterized, and the type and proportions of ingredients mixed together have never been determined. Therefore, the composition of the writing media can only be roughly guessed by observing their visible characteristics and their degradation patterns.
...
"After more than 1600 years, it is clear that the quality of the writing medium originally used by the scribes was truly exceptional, as is the quality of the parchment. The ingredients appear to be well balanced creating a smooth and thin fluid perfect for writing on parchment. The recipe and the manufacturing technique seem to be exquisite too, revealing high craftsmanship and skilled experience for producing good quality inks.

No significant degradation process seems to affect the writing media."

===================================

Wherever you turn... Sinaiticus has never been tested.

Similarly, under the current theories, it is hard to make any sense about binding and rebinding, quire number anomalies and more, so Sara Mazzarino writes:

Scientific analysis of the different inks and a comparison of the results may be of much help to clarify these and many other issues.

Never done.

====================================

LEIPZIG UNIVERSITY LIBRARY REVERSAL OF PLANS .. NO TESTING!

Test were planned on the German parchment by some of the world-class experts in the Materials Sciences (who had done similar work on the Dead Sea Scrolls.)
These tests were planned for April, 2015, to be conducted by the Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM)

The tests that had been planned for April, 2015 have been cancelled by the Leipzig University Library.

====================================

Some additional discussion of general issues here:

Biblical Criticism & History Forum
non-invasive testing of inks, parchment, stains and threads
http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1067

====================================

One of the ironies is that the work done in England with a rebinding in the 1930s by Douglas
Cockerell clearly had negative effects for the studies of the history of the document.

My plan is to add more to this page, however the above is the basics.

No testing ever done .. the testing that was planned .. CANCELLED.

====================================

 

[Steven Avery]

No one will ever test the ink of that mysterious text with no provenance

Here is another example. Stephan Huller is almost surely relating information from David Trobisch. (As an aside, Trobisch is skeptical about the accepted 4th century date given for Sinaiticus, allowing that it could be hundreds of years later, even while afawk considering it to be authentically ancient.)

The Silliest Thing I Read All Week - Oct 19, 2012
http://stephanhuller.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-silliest-thing-i-read-all-week.html

... he said that P46 - the so-called Chester Beatty Papyrus - has so many red flags associated with it he would not be surprised that it was a modern forgery. The problem of course is that it is used by conservative scholars to hold up the antiquity of orthodoxy. No one will ever test the ink of that mysterious text with no provenance because it upholds the inherent presumptions of the very scholars trying to tear down Mar Saba 65.

Now I do not know much about P46 authenticity issues, and whether or not it really has red flags. Nor would I relate it to the Mar Saba document.

What is especially significant here is what I highlighted above.

"No one will ever test the ink of that mysterious text with no provenance."

The Germans recently got close to testing Sinaiticus (Codex Frederico-Augustanus) and then got cold feet. They would not be able to nudge and influence the BAM scholars, true experts in materials, in the way that you see all the convoluted conjecturing that comes out of the British Library and CSP scholarship. (Starting with a presupposition of a 4th century document and the reliability of the Tischendorf historical explanations.)

"The Codex Sinaiticus inks have never been chemically characterized, and the type and proportions of ingredients mixed together have never been determined."- Sara Mazzarino- CSP report

 

[Steven Avery]

hyper-spectral imaging


There is a very minimal ink composition discussion coming out of the multi-spectral imaging (not chemical analysis.)

Multi-spectral imaging for the Codex Sinaiticus
Barry Knight, Head of Conservation Research, The British Library
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/conservation_msi.aspx

... However, these results are consistent with the findings of an investigation of the Vercelli Gospels, written in Latin and probably dating from later in the 4th century. Using X-ray fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy, it was shown that the original text was written using iron gall ink and vermilion, while later notes and additions were made using carbon and minium-based inks [6].

===================================

Jim Davila
http://paleojudaica.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_archive.html

Thursday, March 24, 2005
THE CODEX SINATICUS DIGITIZATION PROJECT is covered in the current issue of the Economist. Looks like a good article, despite the cutsey title ("And the word was made flash"). Excerpt:

The hyperspectral imaging technique that will be used to scan the Bible was originally designed for medical purposes, by Costas Balas at the Technical University of Crete. It works by looking at each image in very narrow bands of wavelength�specific shades of red, green and so on. However, the imaging spans more than just the visible part of the spectrum of light, going from the ultra-violet (light that has shorter wavelength than violet) to the infra-red (light with wavelength longer than red). Because both the ink used to write on the vellum and the vellum itself are transparent at various wavelengths, this technique will allow scholars to see all the layers of the manuscript in at least some wavelengths, and thus perceive the various rewrites it has gone through.

Dr McKendrick says that it is one of the first projects of its kind, and one the library hopes to emulate with other manuscripts. It is only now, he says, that the technology has advanced to the point where digital copies can be as good, if not better, than the original. And the democratisation of access to the text will have a big impact on biblical scholars. Dr [Scott] McKendrick [of the British Library] points out that even the privileged few who had access to the original could spend only a short time examining it. Once the scanning is completed, the many will be able to examine it for as long as they like.​

This is the most detailed account I've seen of the process of recording the information from the manuscript.

===================================

 

[Steven Avery]

Sara Mazzarino -Report on the different inks used in Codex Sinaiticus


This report is also referenced in the section on binding and quire numbers. There are many questions and anomalies here, and much scientific testing never done. I started extracting the first 1/2 but points of interest arise continually.

Report on the different inks used in Codex Sinaiticus and assessment of their condition
Sara Mazzarino
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/conservation_ink.aspx

The Codex Sinaiticus inks have never been chemically characterized, and the type and proportions of ingredients mixed together have never been determined. Therefore, the composition of the writing media can only be roughly guessed by observing their visible characteristics and their degradation patterns....

Ink Corrosion
...After more than 1600 years, it is clear that the quality of the writing medium originally used by the scribes was truly exceptional, as is the quality of the parchment. The ingredients appear to be well balanced creating a smooth and thin fluid perfect for writing on parchment. The recipe and the manufacturing technique seem to be exquisite too, revealing high craftsmanship and skilled experience for producing good quality inks. No significant degradation process seems to affect the writing media.

1.1.2 Red ink
Red ink has been generally used to highlight areas of the text, such as the superscriptions and numbering to the individual psalms in the Old Testament or the Eusebian apparatus of the New Testament.[24]
Detail of brown and red ink used for the main text (Quire 59 f6r, BL f.93r)
Tischendorf[25] referred to this medium as minium[26], probably only meaning ‘red pigment’ rather than a specific chemical compound.
Kirsopp Lake[27] also mentions the red ink used, naming the pigment vermillion[28], and including the New Testament quire numbering in the text considered.
Milne and Skeat[29] too named the pigment used for the red text as vermillion. They also noticed the retracing of the letters and assumed that the original medium had faded. However, the red pigments examined do not show signs of fading. The variation of colour intensity is probably due to differences in the dilution of the writing medium. It is possible that these differences made the text more difficult to read, which may explain the need for retracing.

1.2 Quire numbering
Quire numbers are marks generally placed at the beginning or the end of a section to help maintain the right sequence of text in a manuscript. In Codex Sinaiticus, these marks appear, written in Greek numerals, on the top left side of the first folium on each quire. They are also repeated at the top right side of the same folium.Tischendorf suggested that the number on the left is the original, while the one on the right may be a later addition of the 8th century.[30]

Primary quire numbering
It is not clear who wrote these numbers or when in the history of the manuscript they were written.[31] However, it is possible that they were placed before the text was written in order to help the scribes calculate the distribution of their text. It is also possible that they have been added after the text was written, in order to assemble the sections correctly, before the book was bound.

[31] Milne and Skeat have suggested that the primary numbering is the original one, although not inserted by the scribes of the main text, while the secondary sequence was dated to the 8th century H.J.M. MILNE, T.C. SKEAT 1938, p.7. Kirsopp Lake as well gives the same interpretation in his facsimile of Codex Sinaiticus New Testament. See K. LAKE, H. LAKE, 1911, p. xviii.

SA Note: This means that, on the other hand, the text could have been fully complete before any quire numbers were put in. And that there a separate quire numbering does not by any means necessitate a separate binding.

The numbering is continuous from the Old Testament to the New Testament. However, the ink used for the Old Testament quire numbers and the one used for the New Testament have a different appearance. For this reason, they will be examined separately.

OLD TESTAMENT

SA Note: retracing of primary quire numbers at Q41:1r and Q43:1r is mentioned.

NEW TESTAMENT
The distribution of the ink on the surface and the colour of the New Testament quire numbering appear completely different from those examined in the Old Testament. ... The quality is very good and there is no evidence of degradation, other than some minor ink loss.

Many of the numbers have been partially or completely trimmed off in the past, possibly as a result of one or more re-bindings.

SA Note: A single binding, done after completion of the text, can trim off numbers. This is not real evidence for rebindings.

Those still visible, appear partially or completely erased, revealing a need for correction. However, the correction was never made leaving many questions open in regard to when, why and by whom the erasure may have been done.[34]

More questions and doubts are also raised in regard to the reasons and the circumstances determining such differences between the quire numbers in the Old Testament and those in the New Testament. Were the two sequences written in the scriptorium by the same scribes[35] responsible for the text or by another individual? Was the Old Testament written and then the sections numbered using the ink available in the scriptorium? This could, for instance, imply that the New Testament was written either before or after the Old and another supply of ink was prepared which has resulted in the visual and physical differences between the writing media. This change in ink colour and characteristics is, however, not reflected in the scribes’ work, leaving doubts on the possible interpretation.

Scientific analysis of the different inks and a comparison of the results may be of much help to clarify these and many other issues.

Secondary Quire Numbering
The more recent sequence has been written with a much darker and less fluid ink, compared to those of the primary numeration. The adhesion to the support is not as good as the earlier inks, but there are no major damages and all the numbers are still perfectly visible and legible.

As opposed to the primary numbering, this secondary quire numbering runs from the Old Testament to the New Testament without a change of ink. Moreover, for a number of quires, the two marks differ from each other (the primary numbering counts one section more than the secondary) providing evidence of a significant change that happened to the manuscript at some stage of its history.

According to Tischendorf, Kirsopp Lake and Milne and Skeat, the secondary numeration was added in the 8th century. Is there any correspondence between the writing medium used for the quire numbering, the one used for the squiggle and one of those used to retrace the original text (maybe retracing ink no. 2?)?
Assuming the book was bound soon after its completion,[36] the need for a second fasciculation may imply that the book was disbound at some stage and reassembled according to the new sequence (one section less than the original).

What determined the binding or rebinding of the book? Was the original binding and/or the manuscript damaged and therefore in need of a new binding?
Currently there is no answer to all these questions. It is hoped that future scientific analysis may help us to understand more fully the many issues related to Codex Sinaiticus.

2. The condition assessment of Codex Sinaiticus inks
The condition of such an important manuscript ought to be evaluated in relation to its age. Codex Sinaiticus, being more than 1600 years old, is in a remarkably good state. The most significant damage can be quickly summarized as the loss of the binding structure, the loss of many folia and the moderate degradation of the inks in the remaining portion. However, as far as the latter is concerned the text is mostly still legible. The degradation of the inks may have been generated, or catalyzed, by various factors, such as the composition of the medium itself, or other elements surrounding and interacting with the ink (parchment, environmental conditions and so on...)

(continutes

 

[Steven Avery]

one excuse - 'scholarly consensus'

While the discussion here is the questionable C14 dating, the question applies 100% to the materials and ink testing that could easily be done. (As BAM in Berlin had planned to do in April, 2015 on the Leipzig pages.)

Having consulted with colleagues in History & Classics and our Collection Care team, I can confirm that the Library has not previously subjected either manuscript to C14 dating, nor do we have plans to do so. There is broad scholarly consensus on the dating of both codices based on various well established criteria for judging the date of a manuscript. - Ben Sanderson, British Library

Request for support on petition to C14 ancient bibles
http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au/forums/showpost.php?p=449589&postcount=106

The scholarly consensus excuse should be discarded. It is time for real testing of Codex Sinaitcus.

 

[Steven Avery]

British Library planned multispectral analysis

This can go with the various plans for testing -- note that something like this is also posted in the Library of Stains:

Meanwhile experts at London's British Library are using scientific tools to unravel the Codex the way pathologists would inspect a mysterious dead body. They plan to use multispectral analysis to highlight hidden traces of ink, and holes in the binding may answer other questions: When did the magnificent work break apart? What did the cover look like?

Scholars Piece Together Ancient Bible (2007)
Der Spiegel
Matthias Schulz
http://www.spiegel.de/international...-piece-together-ancient-bible-a-479791-2.html

Clearly, the various erasure spots should be top priority. (If the original is not visible.)

 

[Steven Avery]

Library of Stains - British Library hsa done some work on stain mapping ??

Posted on Facebook

Eureka! Medieval Manuscripts on the Web

https://www.facebook.com/groups/digital.eureka/permalink/1093099277459567/?comment_id=1241178035985023&comment_tracking={"tn":"R"}

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Library of Stains Project
- please note this from the Codex Sinaiticus Project site.

=============

"It is the intention of the conservators to continue the analysis of the parchment features. It is hoped that with the availability of all the documentation data, it can then be used to compare the differences in folios across all holding sites and to help draw some further conclusions. There has already been some work done on stain mapping consecutive folios that are in different locations and these will also be compared for differences in colour and dimension in the hope that any disparity can answer some of the questions that still remain."

Overview of the conservation of Codex Sinaiticus at the British Library
Helen Shenton
Chair, Conservation Working Party
Conclusions
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/conservation_report.aspx​

Parchment Assessment of the Codex Sinaiticus
Gavin Moorhead
May 2009
Conclusions
http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/conservation_parchment.aspx

=============

"already been some work done on stain mapping consecutive folios"
Is anybody familiar with this work?
And isn't this in the sweet spot of the Library of Stains?
Any help appreciated!

 

[Steven Avery]

chemical fingerprinting effective on Gutenberg Bible even with 1982 technology

Even 35 years ago, chemical fingerprinting was effective:

A Visual History of the English Bible: The Tumultuous Tale of the World's Bestselling Book (2008)
Donald L. Brake
https://books.google.com/books?id=mnkbAQAAMAAJ

Printed more than five hundred years ago, the Gutenberg Bible recently began to speak for itself. In October 1982, science weighed in with its support of Johann as the printer of the first Bible.10 A copy of the Gutenberg Bible from the collection of Doheny Memorial Library in Camarillo, California, was submitted for a scientific experiment. Physicist Tom Cahill applied a cyclotron proton accelerator to a leaf of the Gutenberg Bible. By focusing a low-intensity beam on the document and analyzing the spray of X-rays emitted after protons collide with atoms in the target, he could define the compositions of the ink and paper. Using a controlled sample of a single leaf from the University of California Riverside library, the scientists were surprised to find the composition of the ink was not the expected carbon-based type. Gutenberg had used ink with high levels of copper and lead. By developing his own formula for ink, he left a unique chemical "fingerprint." Armed with the knowledge of the ink formula used in the Gutenberg Bible, the researchers continued their use of the cyclotron. The results of the testing far exceeded the researchers' expectations. Not only did the Bible have the same ink formula as the controlled sample, the results also supported the thesis that the ink on various pages was mixed in small amounts as the pages were printed. The ink showed slight variations in consistency. A picture emerged of the printing operation in the fifteenth-century print shop. p. 74-75

 

[Steven Avery]

spectrometry for ink analysis

BCHF
spectrometry for ink analysis
http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1017&p=90281#p90281

From the abstract of one of the papers about spectrometry for ink analysis:

Cohen 2015 Composition of the primary inks in medieval palimpsests effects of the removal
https://www.academia.edu/34532883/C...n_medieval_palimpsests_effects_of_the_removal

"The qualitative and quantitative investigations of historical iron-gall inks by use of µ-XRF spectrometry is a common method for analyzing the differences in their composition. When a fingerprint is established, it is possible to characterize the distinguishable inks used in the production of medieval manuscripts, and, in turn assist in the reconstruction of the manuscript’s history."

This would be a natural for Sinaiticus with its varying conjectured centuries, and some rubrications.

However, the libraries would resist, what if, e.g. the 1845 ink two posts above above has a fingerprint close to some ancient ink?

Notice that the paper is from:

BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing
http://www.bam.de/
https://bam.academia.edu/Departments/4_5_Kunst_und_Kulturgutanalyse/Documents

This is the group that was planned for the 2015 tests, and has lots of DSS experience.

Steven

 

[Steven Avery]

Multi-spectral imaging for the Codex Sinaiticus
Barry Knight, Head of Conservation Research, The British Library
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/conservation_msi.aspx

In comparison, the British Library’s requirements were more modest: the bulk of the imaging would be carried out by the Imaging Services team, using large format digital cameras[3], while multi-spectral imaging would be carried out by conservators and would be limited to small areas where reading the text was difficult or ambiguous. In addition, the library does not employ a specialist imaging scientist, so any equipment acquired would need to be off-the-shelf and straightforward to operate.


After considerable research and discussion, we decided to acquire a MuSIS (Multi-Spectral Imaging System), developed by Forth Photonics in Athens [4]. This instrument was designed specifically for imaging heritage items, such as wall paintings and manuscripts. It is compact and portable and has a very sensitive detector, which means that high-power lighting is not needed, thus reducing the risk of damage to objects. It is simple to use, being controlled through a Windows interface on a laptop. In addition, working with the National Library in Athens, Forth Photonics developed procedures for resolving palimpsests, in other words, being able to distinguish the underwriting from the overwriting on parchment manuscripts that have been cleaned and re-used. It was felt that this could also be useful for examining the Codex Sinaiticus.

...

Unfortunately, there are no comparable analyses of inks on other Greek manuscripts of the 4th century. However, these results are consistent with the findings of an investigation of the Vercelli Gospels, written in Latin and probably dating from later in the 4th century. Using X-ray fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy, it was shown that the original text was written using iron gall ink and vermilion, while later notes and additions were made using carbon and minium-based inks [6].


As the project progressed, it became apparent that the quality of the digital images being generated by the BL Imaging Services team was so high that the scholars working on the transcription of the text had no difficulties in reading even dubious (overwritten or erased) letters, so in the event the capabilities of the MuSIS were not tested. Nevertheless, it was useful to have the MuSIS on hand, as it could not have been predicted that the digital images would be completely adequate for the task of transcribing the Codex.

Conclusions​

• Multi-spectral imaging was chosen to complement the work done by the British Library’s Imaging Services team, with the expectation that it would help to resolve dubious or ambiguous passages.
• The intention was not to rival the systems used by the National Gallery and other institutions for high-resolution multi-spectral imaging of easel paintings, but to image small areas of the manuscript where the reading was uncertain.
• The MuSIS, manufactured by Forth Photonics, met our requirements, producing images of adequate resolution for our purposes.
• The MuSIS can produce reflectance spectra of the different inks used in the Codex, which can assist in identifying the pigments used. It is probable that the black ink is iron gall ink, and the red contains vermilion.
• The digital images produced by the BL Imaging Services team were of such high quality that the scholars had no difficulty in transcribing even hard-to-read parts of the manuscript.

References​

[1] van Asperen de Boer, J.R.J., Infra-red reflectography: a method for the examination of paintings, Applied Optics 7 (1968) 1711-1714.


[2] For example, the VASARI Project developed a system using 7 broad-band interference filters, capable of a resolution of 20 pixels/mm: Saunders, D and Cupitt, J, Image processing at the National Gallery: the VASARI project, National Gallery Technical Bulletin 14 (1993) 72-85, while the CRISATEL Project uses a system with 13 narrow-band interference filters, with a resolution of 12,000 x 30,000 pixels: Lahanier, C et al., CRISATEL: High definition spectral digitisation of paintings with simulation of varnish removal, ICOM-CC 13th Triennial Meeting, Rio de Janeiro (2002) 295-300.


[3] BL Imaging Services used a Sinar 5”x 4” camera body with a Phase One PowerPhase FX digital scanning back, with a 6000 x 8400 pixel CCD chip.


[4] Balas, C et al., A novel hyper-spectral imaging apparatus for the non-destructive analysis of objects of artistic and historic value, Journal of Cultural Heritage 4 (2003) 330-337.


[5] Note that Tischendorf refers to the red ink as “minium”, while Kirsopp Lake and Milne & Skeat refer to it as “vermilion”. They are only using these terms as colour names, not as indications of the chemical nature of the pigments.


[6] Aceto, M., Agostino, A., Boccaleri, E. and Garlanda, A.C., The Vercelli Gospels laid open: an investigation into the inks used to write the oldest Gospels in Latin, X-ray Spectrometry 37 (2008) 286-292.