Neela K. Wickremesinghe reviews

Abstract

culture; the authors report these as preliminary data, and as they mention, more data would support their interpretation. The last two sections include contributions related to the protection of cultural heritage, the use of GIS Technology in field conservation and for the identification of previously unknown archaeological sites, and the use of laser and nuclear irradiation methods as a tool to facilitate conservation treatment of cultural heritage objects. Todor Valchev and Stefan Bakardzhiev from the Regional Historical Museum in Yambol, Bulgaria, discuss the use of GIS to determine the precise location of ancient settlements in their paper ‘The Boyadzhik concession area: the use of GIS technology in the protection of cultural heritage’, before the last section, ‘Heritage Restoration and Conservation Methods’, which has three papers on conservation presented by conservation scientist colleagues from Bulgaria, Romania and France. Victoria Atanassova, Ivan Kostadinov, Peter Zahariev and Margarita Grozeva from the Institute of Solid State Physics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, discuss their testing for the removal of graffiti-paint sprays from samples of limestone, granite and marble using two different laser systems in ‘Laser-assisted removal of graffiti paint on stone: potential use in the restoration of cultural heritage monuments’. In ‘Cultural heritage disinfection by irradiation’, Corneliu Ponta from the National Institute for Research and Development in Physics and Nuclear Engineering in Romania promotes the use of gamma radiation to ‘disinfect’ organic heritage and supports it as a safe method for the conservation of heritage materials, while Laurent Cortella (ARCNucléart—CEA Grenoble, France) in ‘Nuclear techniques in preservation treatments of archaeological organic materials and how to take archaeological studies into account when applying them’ describes a wider range of applications of gamma irradiation for the conservation of waterlogged archaeological organic materials. All papers in this section offer useful examples where the physical sciences are combined with state-of-the-art methods to present useful options for conservation choices, provided that there is the opportunity to access such facilities. This reviewer could not agree more with the editors that South-Eastern Europe ‘is characterised by [...] an obvious need to bring closer together traditionally-trained archaeologists with specialists in natural sciences interested in the research and conservation of ancient material remains’. Meetings of this kind and their resulting publications are needed to communicate local archaeometry to an international scientific audience. In that respect, the book achieves the goal of publication, because the volume covers nearly all aspects of heritage sciences employed in this part of Europe andmaking the book open access admirably furthers this goal. The book is useful to everyone working on the archaeology of the Balkans, because the papers include a wealth of scientific evidence to facilitate understanding on the archaeology of the region. Although the book does not include much on innovative instrumentation nor methodologies, it is a valuable collection of scientific research and applications, and it promotes the work undertaken in the Balkans to an international, anglophone audience. Overall, I found this book a good read and I learnt a lot about the archaeology of the Balkans. Every work in this field is important. To borrow the homily ‘every little helps’, I found that every scientific-based case study helps—no matter how small— to build the bigger picture of life in the past. The Balkan Symposium on Archaeometry is a valuable scientific series of conferences which report findings on the archaeology of the Balkans, and their proceedings are worthwhile to read, so I very much look forward to the 2022 conference in October!