Scientific investigation of the Imperial Gates belonging to the wooden church from Săcel, Turda County, Romania

Abstract

Cultural heritage objects have a major contribution to the historical patrimony of every country. In Romania, wooden churches are famous, they are mostly dated in between the XVth and XXth century, but unfortunately many of them have been destroyed, by natural or anthropic means. Therefore, the necessity of conservation and restoration has appeared, to the ones that still exist, as legacy for the future generations. In the present article, an Imperial Gate from a wooden church in Cluj County, Romania, has been investigated, using scientific techniques (FTIR and XRF). A 3D reconstruction has been performed, using similar colors with the original artwork, as resulted from the scientific investigation of the painting materials. A limited number of constituent materials have been used for this artwork, and the wood species used was lime, due to the ease of carving.