Restoring ink in historical texts
World libraries, archives and museums encounter the problem of preserving numerous documents that are threatened by the corrosive properties of their gall ink. Therefore a new non-aqueous paper stabilisation treatment using a combination of alkali and antioxidants has been developed. The effects of preventative antioxidants have been studied using state-of-the-art observational and analytical techniques. The historical text sources contain recipes for iron gall inks in several languages including Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin and Spanish. The sources date from the 3rd century AD to the early 20th century. Approximately ninety title descriptions and 250 iron-gall ink recipes from the historical sources were entered into the ArTeS (ArTeS = Art Technological Sources) database. In order to reconstruct the inks, selection criteria were defined and applied to about 150 of the iron-gall ink recipes entered into the ArTeS database. Based on the historical recipes, 23 inks were prepared for reconstruction purposes. This should aid in the preservation of historical text sources in the future.
