Editorial

Abstract

Welcome to the second issue of the year 2022, which marks the 50th anniversary of the incorporation of the American Institute for Conservation. This year will appear in history books as the start of the largest war in Europe since World War II. We are also still living in the middle of the COVID19 pandemic. In addition, our activities keep negatively impacting the Earth’s climate at an alarming and unprecedented rate as reported in numerous research publications. As cultural heritage professionals we are committed to dealing with these problems by implementing sustainable practices in the conservation field to help fight climate change, devising ways of lowering the risk of virus spread, and developing preservation strategies to protect cultural heritage from the disasters of war. In this difficult time, I would like to share with you a bit of joy, which I hope will be provided by the articles featured in this issue. The papers in this issue present work that has important practical implications for the conservation field. They also emphasize the significance of international collaboration, which is key to our field, featuring work by researchers from Austria, Italy, New Zealand, UK, and US. The first paper in this issue, by Pintér, discusses research carried out to evaluate salt-affected mineral materials found in two historical buildings in Austria. The author conducted ion chromatographic analysis in conjunction with scanning electron microscopy to determine the water-soluble ionic component and spatial distribution of salts present in samples taken from the buildings. The paper presents the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed methodology, emphasizing the influence of sample preparation, type, and solubility of salts on the reliability of the data. It is widely known that salt crystallization processes can create severe damage on historical buildings. To overcome this problem, the characterization approach presented in the paper could be of special interest to AIC’s Architecture Specialty Group and Archeological Heritage Network. The second paper, by Chang and Lu, presents a comprehensive case study conducted on a red carved lacquer dish from the Jiajing period of the Ming dynasty. The paper highlights the need for having a broad discussion on materials and techniques together with stylistic studies to achieve a better understanding of cultural heritage objects. The results were also evaluated in the context of other three similar objects. Although the use of reference objects is recommended for these types of case studies, the authors recognize that the low number of objects used for comparison was not enough to definitively determine whether a carved lacquerware belongs to the Jiajing period. Nevertheless, a multi-technique approach such as the one presented in the paper can provide a foundation for future studies on similar objects. The complexity of metal objects and their degradation mechanisms continue to raise interesting questions to conservators and scientists around the world. The next two papers of this issue address problems related to treatment of silver–copper alloy objects and the measurement of coating thickness on silver objects. Basilissi et al. focus on the use of erasers for silver tarnish removal and compare their effectiveness relative to other traditional cleaning methods. The cleaning effect was evaluated using microscopic observations and colorimetric measurements. In addition, infrared spectroscopy was used to determine if there were any eraser residues on the evaluated surfaces after cleaning. The proposed method was tested on actual cultural heritage objects showing promising results. A typical step that follows silver tarnish removal is to apply a protective coating on the cleaned surface. Crawford et al. evaluate the performance of polymer coatings on silver objects using fiber optic reflectance spectroscopy. This technique allowed to measure the thickness of a number of coatings applied on silver. The authors studied the interaction between light and the coating/silver system to establish an effective measurement protocol and develop a coating thickness determination model. The protective effect of the coating is directly related to its thickness, so this screening method offers a way of relating the degree of tarnishing of an object to the width of the protective layer. This paper is significant because it demonstrates how a relatively inexpensive technique can be applied to study transparent coatings applied on silver objects. The last paper, by Peranteau and Shepherd, presents how mitochondrial DNA sequencing was used to identify mammal skins in a Malawian garment. Advancements in technology and techniques have led mitochondrial DNA analysis to become a common method in contemporary science. This is a topic of interest to conservators that work with objects containing animal-based materials such as hair, feathers, gutskin, leather, and parchment, among others. The analysis requires extraction of a micro sample containing degraded DNA to determine the organic remnant’s genus/species and to create a genetic