Art, recognition of art, taste, and traditions have changed many times over the last centuries due to cultural development, crisis, and damages. The indicated progress is easily recognisable by comparing significant periods like Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, etc. These epochs developed their own traditions in architecture and painting using different techniques and materials, which caused substantial transformations of many buildings and objects. Areas were changed, extended or entirely rebuilt, but traces and fragments of the former periods were somehow kept, preserved or covered under a new shape.
For understanding the objects' history and decision-making in conservation, it is mandatory to investigate as much as possible the stratigraphy of these multi-layered cultural heritage objects. The polymorphic mix of many different materials and layers interact and affect each other intensely. This is where the REVIEW project is addressed, with a special focus on wall paintings. Within the MSCA fellowship, several non-destructive multispectral imaging techniques will be adopted and combined to detect covered wall paintings, hidden structures and unseen damages in Cultural Heritage. Therefore ultraviolet-visible-near-infrared (UV-VIS-NIR) imaging with active and passive thermography in the spectral ranges of long- and mid-wave infrared (LWIR and MWIR), plus 3D laser scanning and photogrammetry will be combined. In addition, statistical methods (e.g. Principal Component Analysis, PCA) for comparing and analysing the multiband data will be tested and implemented.
The workflow will be tested and developed on laboratory test objects and real-world case studies, being Cultural Heritage sites in Valencia such as the Cathedral of Valencia and San Juan del Hospital. After successfully implementing the workflow on local case studies, it will be transferred to the Thivanka Image House, a Buddhist Temple at the UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS) of Polonnaruwa in Sri Lanka. At the Thivanka Image House, the investigations will serve to reveal large areas of concealed wall paintings and to detect areas threatened by climate damages. The results will help protect and conserve the WHS. At the end of the project, the innovative research approach of REVIEW will be ready to be transferred to many historical monuments and sites to help conservation users with easy-to-use, comprehensive and outstanding technological solutions for their examination, conservation and dissemination of existing and hidden wall paintings.
