pictures of stained pages - comparing Leipzig 1844 and British Library 1859

Steven Avery

Administrator
This goes with other threads with material on discoloration and stains and forgery techniques.

discoloration of documents, stains, liquids used - forensic testing
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php/threads/a.109

no testing of materials, ink! .. oops
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php/threads/a.86

white parchment - A Tale of Two Manuscripts
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php/threads/a.82
"Aging of Manuscripts - A Common Technique using Tea, Herbs and more"

However, here we will emphasize a bit of the viewing of ms. pages
Starting with what is put in the Eureka! Library of Stains posts.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
comparing the same folio, Jeremiah, Leipzig 1844 and British Library 1859

Published on:

Facebook
Eureka! Medieval Manuscripts on the Web
Library of Stains Project
https://www.facebook.com/groups/digital.eureka/permalink/1093099277459567/?comment_id=1095616450541183&comment_tracking={"tn":"R2"}


Here is an example of why Sinaiticus would be a fertile field for looking at stains and colour. What we have here are continuous pages in the ms.
One went to St. Petersburg, and is now in London.

Quire 46, Folio 8v
British Library
Jeremiah, 9:20 - 10:25 library: BL https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manu...lioNo=8&lid=en&quireNo=46&side=r&zoomSlider=0

One page went to Leipzig:

Quire 47, Folio 1r
Leipzig University Library
Jeremiah, 10:25- 11:23 library: https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manu...lioNo=8&lid=en&quireNo=46&side=v&zoomSlider=0

Contiguous pictures at: http://www.sinaiticus.net/four contiguous points.html

Eureka Library of Stains.jpg


Stains, colour bars and other issues all in one pic.

And let us remember also:

Forensic Chemistry, p. 79 (1921)
Alfred Lucas
https://archive.org/stream/forensicchemistr00lucarich#page/78/mode/2up


"Discoloration due to age is largely a process of oxidation brought about by natural means and it takes place in proportion to the extent to which the paper has been exposed to the air and light, and hence the outsides and edges of old documents, which are the most exposed, become the most discoloured, the discoloration progressively diminishing towards the less exposed parts."

And that pesky Sinaiticus, it just decided to overhaul parchment science.
Well, not exactly, Lucas mentions another vector of coloration.


"Artificial discoloration made to simulate age is produced by means of a coloured solutions .. coffee .. teas .. tobacco .. potassium permanganate"
https://archive.org/stream/forensicchemistr00lucarich#page/80/mode/2up

“the same Codex was cleaned, with a solution of herbs, on the theory that the skins might be cleaned, but, in fact, that the writing might be changed, as it was, to a sort of yellow colour.”
"The MS. had been systematically tampered with, in order to give it an ancient appearance, as early as 1852"
“had also been cleaned with lemon-juice, professedly for the purpose of washing the vellum, but, in reality, to weaken the freshness of the letters.”
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php/threads/a.279/post-605

Maybe the new forensic chemistry book will come out and say that the outsides and edges really do not get discoloured, the parchment does not really lose suppleness in the dry heat over 1500 years .. after all, look at Sinaiticus :) .. circularity, the jewel.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
stain anomalies

Codex Sinaiticus Project
Codicology: the history of the structural features of the Codex Sinaiticus
Flavio Marzo

http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/project/conservation_codicology.aspx

A liturgical manuscript used for example in a church, usually shows much more damages on the surface, like strong handling marks or drops of wax and others like these but even with many repairs to the spine, sign of use, the Codex Sinaiticus does not bear an equal deterioration of the textual area, moreover sometimes it is possible to find stains on a page that are not showing visible offset on the following one, like on page 41 verso of the Old Testament compared to the following one on the recto and on page 73 verso compared to 74 recto and all these features could possibly support the theory of a storage of the manuscript split and may be bound in different parts and used in different places possibly to be copied by different monks at the same time.
Future research

  • In order to have a better understanding about the manuscript's very complex and rich use (possible storage and its separated parts or unbound) a more accurate mapping of the stains could be extremely useful.

As often happens, unexplained anomalies that fit much better the 1800s creation of Sinaiticus than the 1500 years of use as a Codex in a monastery.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
IDENTIFYING THE REAL THING
(Prepared by D. van der Reyden of SCMRE, for School for Scanning, Sponsored by the National Park Service and Managed by the Northeast Document Conservation Center, September 11-13, 1996, New York City)
https://www.si.edu/mci/downloads/RELACT/identifying_the_real_thing.pdf

Ultraviolet light, or "black light", reveals changes in elemental composition on the surface of objects because it causes specific fluorescence in materials depending on composition and age. Retouching, overpainting, varnishes, adhesives, and certain types of deterioration that might be invisible to the naked eye, like mold damage, can be detected and identified. UV fluorescence can sometimes make erased ink visible, can indicate overpainting or retouching, and can help identify different types of stains. For example, oil stains fluoresce orange, wax or starch can be bluish, or unsized paper deep purple. Different types of mold stains fluoresce differently, so even the kind of mold attack might be identified. Often mold attack is apparent in UV fluorescence even when it is completely invisible in normal light.

Ultraviolet light, or "black light", reveals changes in elemental composition on the surface of objects because it causes specific fluorescence in materials depending on composition and age. Retouching, overpainting, varnishes, adhesives, and certain types of deterioration that might be invisible to the naked eye, like mold damage, can be detected and identified. UV fluorescence can sometimes make erased ink visible, can indicate overpainting or retouching, and can help identify different types of stains. For example, oil stains fluoresce orange, wax or starch can be bluish, or unsized paper deep purple. Different types of mold stains fluoresce differently, so even the kind of mold attack might be identified. Often mold attack is apparent in UV fluorescence even when it is completely invisible in normal light.

In the next quote, Peter Cresswell remarks on another Sinaiticus anomaly. His support of mythicist type theories is quite independent and not relevant to this observation.

Yet, it does appear that Sinaiticus was never put to use as a bible for daily reading. The international team examining it found neither the page wear nor the candle wax stains that would have been associated with such use. Why then was it kept for centuries?

The Invention of Jesus: How the Church Rewrote the New Testament (2013)
Peter Cresswell
https://books.google.com/books?id=aHA8CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT78
The next excerpt emphasizes that stain analysis can be a primary part of forgery detection.

Genuine historic documents are occasionally soiled and in poor condition, but that is the exception rather than the rule, and forgers often add ridiculous elements of damage (like the bullet-riddled message for help that Custer allegedly wrote from the battlefield of the Little Big Horn) or of age (like the seashell encrustations on the “Secrete Log Boke” of Christopher Columbus). As manuscript expert the late Forest H. Sweet wrote to one would-be forger: “Your stains don’t match either in the folds or against the envelope. The only clown act you didn’t try was boring a worm hole or two into it.” 17-p.207

Detecting Forgery: Forensic Investigation of Documents (2015)
Joe Nickell
https://books.google.com/books?id=yKQeBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA131
 
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