Conservation scientists
imaging and materials analysis of manuscripts, paintings and objects
Imaging and materials analysis can show how an object was made, when, and whether it is what it claims to be. Conservation scientists can say which techniques are feasible on fragile manuscripts, paintings and objects, and what they could reveal.
7 problems need conservation scientists
- 01Who printed the anonymous and false-imprint books of eighteenth-century Britain?
Image selected copies at high resolution under raking light, measuring ornament impressions and cracks to tell one physical block from a close copy.
Texts & authorship · Europe · 1695–1800also needs archivists and data scientists - 02How did Gutenberg cast his type?
Cast type by each candidate method, print with period materials, and image the impressions at a common resolution so they can enter the same glyph pipeline.
Material & visual · Europe · 1450–1470also needs data scientists - 03What texts did Newton copy in the alchemical manuscripts whose sources are unidentified?
Compare watermarks, chain-line spacing and inks in Keynes MSS 31, 44 and 58 with dated Newton papers to narrow when each copy was made.
Texts & authorship · Europe · 1660–1700also needs philologists, archivists and computational linguists - 04When was the consonantal text of the Qurʾān standardized?
Image the Sanaa palimpsest and other dispersed early fragments so that the erased lower text and unpublished leaves can be read and transcribed.
Texts & authorship · Middle East · 632–750also needs philologists and archaeologists - 05Was rongorongo an independent invention of writing?
Work with the holding museums in Washington, St Petersburg, Santiago, London and Berlin to identify sampling points on the tablets that minimize damage to carved surfaces.
Languages & scripts · Pacific · 1400–1870also needs computational linguists and archaeologists - 06Were Moses Shapira's Deuteronomy fragments an ancient text or an 1880s forgery?
Image British Library Add MS 41294 and the Berlin Shapira inventory at high resolution, with those libraries, to support a reliable critical text of the transcriptions.
Texts & authorship · Middle East · 1878–1885also needs philologists and archivists - 07Did Vermeer use a camera obscura or other optical aids?
Record perspective lines, pinhole positions, object sizes and focus gradients from the published technical imaging of each securely attributed painting, with measurement error.
Material & visual · Europe · 1655–1675also needs data scientists
Can you help?
Propose an approach or leave a comment on any problem above, or write to say what you could contribute.
Drafted by Claude Opus 5.5