Cultural Heritage Artifacts Research Articles

Legal and illegal export of cultural heritage artefacts from developing countries: Protection of cultural heritage in South Africa

Legal and illegal export of cultural heritage artefacts from developing countries: Protection of cultural heritage in South Africa

Karsten’s Work as a City Branding Strengthener for The Semarang City, Indonesia

Currently the City of Semarang, Indonesia, is trying to have a BRAND which is expected to be able to show the potential of Semarang city. Semarang city is one of the cities in Indonesia which in planning the development of the form of town planning, was planned by a city planner who is also an architect named Ir. Herman Thomas Karsten. Karsten has a lot of architectural works in Semarang city, ranging from buildings that function as houses, offices, to other public buildings such as schools, markets, theater, office building, housings, and hospitals. Karsten's architectural works are known to be comfortable to view or use for their activities. This is shown by the many works of Karsten which are still being used well by building users. This study aims to reveal the potential of the city of Semarang related to the urban cultural heritage of Karsten's work. This research will provide benefits for the stakeholders of the Semarang City in determining the city branding of Semarang city. In addition, this research is also beneficial for the development of architectural scholarship, and will provide new insights to the academic community about the importance of cultural heritage in a city. This research will provide clarity, that the Urban Cultural Heritage will affect the city identity and city character. As for the community, this research will contribute to helping the creation of a new built environment for cultural heritage artifacts through the city's brand image.

Polyelectrolyte Coatings—A Viable Approach for Cultural Heritage Protection

The continuous degradation of cultural heritage artifacts (due to different factors, including the rising air pollution, climate change or excessive biological activity, among others) requires the continuous development of protection strategies, technologies and materials. In this regard, polyelectrolytes have offered effective ways to fight against degradation but also to conserve the cultural heritage objects. In this review, we highlight the key developments in the creation and use of polyelectrolytes for the preservation, consolidation and cleaning of the cultural heritage artifacts (with particular focus on stone, metal and artifacts of organic nature, such as paper, leather, wood or textile). The state of the art in this area is presented, as well as future development perspectives.

Protective coatings for ceramic artefacts exposed to UV ageing

The commercial acrylic copolymer Paraloid B72 (PB72) and a synthesized nanostructured material (AMF) bearing silsesquioxane, methacrylate and fluorine units were analyzed to assess their performances as protective coatings for the conservation of Neolithic Cucuteni ceramic pottery when submitted to UV ageing. In the context of comparative evaluation of the protective efficiency, the present paper reports the use of a functional coating that operates via specific photochemical transformations at the coating-air interface as a UV resistant protection coating for cultural heritage artefacts. The main factors that influenced the photo-degradation behavior of the polymeric materials included their structure, the properties at the polymer/air interfaces, and the preferential orientation of functional groups at the surface of the polymeric coatings.

Development of Data Labelling and Visualization Technologies for Cultural Heritage Intelligent Curation

This study aims to enable users of digitized cultural heritage artefacts to understand the correlation between artefacts and their context, discover new knowledge, and gain inspiration. We have developed data labelling and visualization technologies specific to cultural heritage so that users, such as curators, cultural heritage experts, and museum visitors, can easily and quickly access the information that they want through the correlation between artefacts. We came up with a web-based labelling tool for cultural heritage data and applied it to data on 45,692 artefacts from the National Museum of Korea. We also invented a web-based visualization tool that converts lists of attribute information in Excel spreadsheets into visualized content and edits the attributes. The meanings of thumbnails of visualized cultural heritage and that of connected lines, a search function, and visualized cultural heritage will allow users to quickly and easily access the cultural heritage information they are looking for.

Negative muons for the characterization of thin layers in Cultural Heritage artefacts

Muonic atom X-ray Emission Spectroscopy (µ-XES) is a novel technique based on the detection of high-energy X-rays emitted after the interaction of a negative muon beam with matter. Thanks to the multi-elemental range, negligible self-absorption of the x-rays and the possibility of performing depth profile studies, the technique is a very powerful probe for the analysis of cultural heritage artefacts. By tuning the energy of the incident muon beam, indeed, it is possible to investigate the different layers that constitute a sample. In this work, we report preliminary results of the analysis on two fire-gilded surfaces, in which the data analysis is coupled with Monte Carlo-based simulation software. Here, to perform a depth profile characterization, the samples were analysed at different beam energies (or momentum). Each of the resulting x-ray spectra was then analysed and compared with the output of the simulations software and a remarkably good agreement was reached. The results of the work are promising and with this approach, it will be possible to enhance the capability offered by the technique, both in terms of data analysis and data interpretation.

Physical Chemical Investigation of Gamma-Irradiated Parchment for Preservation of Cultural Heritage

The historical artefacts of parchment are prone to degradation if the storage conditions are improper due to the collagen structure having a limited stability under physical, chemical, and biological agent attacks. The parchment structure is difficult to characterize due to the variety of manufacturing traditions (eastern/western), intrinsic variability of skins (i.e., species, breeding variation, living conditions, effects of pathologies, etc.), biodeterioration, and aging, and the main concern in its analysis is its uniformity. The deterioration of parchment collagen produces a rather stiff or in some circumstances, a relaxed structure. Any intervention or treatment of unique, very precious cultural heritage artefacts must not negatively influence the properties of the component materials. Gamma irradiation is a relatively new technique of bioremediation. Data on the leather properties pre- and post-ionizing radiation bioremediation treatments are few in the literature. Fewer data are available on the historical leather and parchment physical chemical characteristics after ionizing gamma irradiation. This research had two main objectives: (i) the characterization of the parchment structure's uniformity across the analyzed areas and its mechanical properties, i.e., tensile stress by mechanical tests and ATR-FTIR spectroscopy; and (ii) to establish parchment tolerance when exposed to ionizing gamma radiation as a pre-requisite for cultural heritage preservation irradiation treatment. It was found that the mechanical tests and ATR-FTIR spectroscopy may identify changes in the parchment's irradiated structure and that the preservation of cultural heritage parchment artefacts may be performed at maximum 15 kGy gamma irradiation dose.

MementoArtem: A Digital Cultural Heritage Approach to Archiving Street Art

Street art, and its close relation, graffiti, can possess a dramatic visual, aesthetic and political power. However, artworks are subject to damage and harm by many means such as weather, removal of unsanctioned works by public authorities, defacement, vandalism and even demolition. Artists themselves often regard their work as purely temporary creations. In a word, street art is fragile. The MementoArtem project was established in 2021 to explore a variety of human-centered technologies and emerging standards to document and archive, not only the physical work of street artists, but also the tacit knowledge of a variety of sources that go into their production. In this way, street art, like other cultural heritage artefacts, may be digitally preserved for future generations. It is with this in mind that we propose a metaframework for the documentation, storing and dissemination of a semantically-enabled archive of street art.

An overview of differential models for corrosion of cultural heritage artefacts

New technologies play a central role in damage prevention of artistic and cultural heritage. The literature is ourishing of mathematical models that describe the process of corrosion due to weathering and exposition to pollutants. These models consist of differential equations or partial differential equations that need to be solved approximately by numerical methods. This paper aims to describe the mathematical models in the literature and the numerical methods used for their solution. We focus in particular on the studies of corrosion of pieces of art made of stone, lime mortar concrete and metal.

Gamma and electron beam irradiation use in the control of a radiation-resistant fungus (Epicoccum nigrum) for preservation of contaminated organic artefacts of traditional heritage

When artefacts of traditional cultural heritage are waterlogged due to floods and other disasters, they can be quickly protected from contamination by harmful fungi using irradiation treatments. In this study, we showed that Epicoccum nigrum has the potential to contaminate traditional heritage artefacts made of Korean paper and silk under waterlogged conditions. E. nigrum showed 60% lower mycelial growth in medium containing freshwater than in medium containing natural seawater. Control of this contamination was attempted using gamma and electron beam irradiation disinfection technology. The mycelial growth of E. nigrum irradiated with a 5 kGy dose of gamma rays was completely controlled at 15 kGy dose. Next, we evaluated the effect of irradiation on contaminated sample artefacts. E. nigrum growing on waterlogged sample artefacts of cultural heritage was completely controlled at 15 kGy in freshwater-immersed artefacts of Korean paper and silk and seawater-immersed silk. However, in Korean paper immersed in seawater, 15 kGy gamma-irradiation treatment did not control growth of the fungus. Our results suggest that at least 15 kGy of gamma radiation should be used to for treatment, to preserve waterlogged traditional cultural heritage artefacts of Korea, after flooding or other disasters involving water.

Multimodal metadata assignment for cultural heritage artifacts

We develop a multimodal classifier for the cultural heritage domain using a late fusion approach and introduce a novel dataset. The three modalities are Image, Text, and Tabular data. We based the image classifier on a ResNet convolutional neural network architecture and the text classifier on a multilingual transformer architecture (XML-Roberta). Both are trained as multitask classifiers. Tabular data and late fusion are handled by Gradient Tree Boosting. We also show how we leveraged a specific data model and taxonomy in a Knowledge Graph to create the dataset and to store classification results.

Preservation of intangible and tangible cultural heritage using digital technology

There is presently a shortage of preservation of intangible cultural heritage and places for distributing tangible cultural heritage artifacts, regardless of their high value and usability for a nation. Despite efforts to protect cultural heritage, such as mapping and designing information systems to ensure the authenticity of information circulating in the community about intangible traditions and tangible sites obtained from different sources, many historical information places have been converted into new beliefs and buildings. Therefore, this research aims to provide information to promote public awareness about the distribution of tangible sites and intangible information about cultural heritage. A system development method with a prototype model comprising the stages of design and evaluation, system coding, and program testing, alongside system evaluation and usage, was employed. Subsequently, the results showed that the mapping information system increases the effectiveness and efficiency of delivering intangible and tangible cultural heritage information to the public and tourists.

Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Yellow River Basin: Its Spatial–Temporal Distribution Characteristics and Differentiation Causes

Studying the spatial distribution characteristics of and factors that influence intangible cultural heritage is an important way to improve the management and protection of the heritage. On the basis of the standard deviation ellipse, point pattern analysis, kernel density analysis, spatial autocorrelation, Geodetector, and other methods, 891 national intangible cultural heritage artifacts (divided into five batches and ten categories) in the Yellow River Basin were taken as the research objects, and their spatial and temporal distribution characteristics and causes were quantitatively analyzed. As per the results, (1) the intangible cultural heritage in the Yellow River Basin shows a spatial distribution pattern that is dense in the east and sparse in the west, and there is a strong spatial dependence; (2) the intangible cultural heritage in the Yellow River Basin shows a “west first and then east” trend in time, and the quantity and type have significant differences in different time sections; (3) according to the batch analysis, the aggregation of the second batch of the intangible cultural heritage is the strongest, and the NNI value continues to increase from the second to the fifth batch of the intangible cultural heritage, indicating that the development of intangible cultural heritage is increasingly related to areas with backward economies and ethnic minorities; and (4) policy orientation, economic development, and topography are the dominant factors affecting the spatial distribution pattern of the intangible cultural heritage in the Yellow River Basin.

Old Calendaristsʼ Religious Minority in Romania - Contribution to the Study of the History and Cultural Heritage

For centuries, Romania has been the center of numerous national, ethnic, and religious communities, each with its own cultural and religious organizations. The Christian faith group found in this country includes legally protected religious communities, marked by specific features such as perception of time, symbolism of space, patterns, as well as beliefs, rituals, and customs. The paper presents the religious minority of old calendarists in Romania, which emerged within the Romanian Orthodox Church at the beginning of the 20th century as a result of disputes over the use of the liturgical calendar. Fundamental issues associated with the Gregorian and Julian calendars, the history of old calendarists in Romania, and the churches currently using the Julian calendar in their liturgical practice in Romania are addressed. Additionally, the article presents key artifacts of the tangible cultural heritage of old calendarists. The analysis is based on qualitative methodology, including the results of field studies conducted in Romania during the period of 2010-2020.

Imbalanced volunteer engagement in cultural heritage crowdsourcing: a task-related exploration based on causal inference

As the crowdsourcing approach is increasingly being used for digitizing cultural heritage artifacts, there is a rising need for volunteer engagement in such collaborative digital humanities projects. This study focuses on the less explored topic of imbalanced volunteer engagement (IVE); it refers to the fact that most volunteers tend to focus only on a small portion of tasks, making it challenging to sustain cultural heritage crowdsourcing (CHC) projects. Using a public dataset containing 145,168,535 items captured from the Australian Newspaper Digitisation Project, we utilized a machine learning-based causal inference approach to investigate the IVE problem by examining the causal relationships between task content characteristics and volunteer engagements. We used the directed acyclic graph (DAG) to represent the structure, such that a causal relationship consisting of 11 nodes and 16 edges was obtained. Specifically, four causes, including task category, word count, number of task lists, and whether the task was illustrated, directly affect IVE. We further discuss these findings from a theoretical perspective and suggest three propositions: a) nudge-like intervention of a task list, b) subjective (perceived) low task complexity, and c) attraction of task presentation, alleviating the IVE problem. This study contributes to the literature on volunteer engagement in the CHC context and sheds new light on the design and implementation of collaborative digital humanities projects.

The Australian Management of Protected Underwater Cultural Heritage Artifacts in Public and Private Custody

AbstractThis article briefly outlines underwater cultural heritage artifact management in Australia from an unregulated collecting environment in the 1940s–1960s to the increasingly regulated environment of the present. In 1993, in conjunction with new legislation, an amnesty was declared in order to inventory artifacts collected from now-protected historic shipwrecks that were in private hands. The amnesty period concluded with approximately 20,000 artifacts notified at a time when information was being stored in a range of formats and to different standards. Today, the Australian Government manages the possession, custody, and control of approximately 500,000 underwater cultural heritage artifacts, most of which are in collecting institutions, with one-tenth in public custody. This article highlights the contemporary legislative, policy, and administrative framework for the management of underwater cultural heritage artifacts in Australia, particularly those that remain in the possession of private individuals and are subject to trade.

Corrosion challenges towards a sustainable society

AbstractA global transition towards more sustainable, affordable and reliable energy systems is being stimulated by the Paris Agreement and the United Nation's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This poses a challenge for the corrosion industry, as building climate‐resilient energy systems and infrastructures brings with it a long‐term direction, so as a result the long‐term behaviour of structural materials (mainly metals and alloys) becomes a major prospect. With this in mind “Corrosion Challenges Towards a Sustainable Society” presents a series of cases showing the importance of corrosion protection of metals and alloys in the development of energy production to further understand the science of corrosion, and bring the need for research and the consequences of corrosion into public and political focus. This includes emphasis on the limitation of greenhouse gas emissions, on the lifetime of infrastructures, implants, cultural heritage artefacts, and a variety of other topics.

Cep Telefonu Kameralarından Elde Edilen Görüntüler ile Kültürel Miras Eserlerinin Modellenmesi

Geçmişte yaşamış medeniyetler ile günümüz ve gelecek nesil arasında önemli bir iletişim kaynağı olan kültürel miras eserlerinin korunması ve belgelenmesi önemlidir. Kültürel miraslarda meydana gelen doğal ve yapay nedenlerden oluşan tahribatlar veya yıkımlar belgelemenin ve metrik bilgilerin önemini daha da artırmaktadır. Kamera ve yapay zeka teknolojisindeki hızlı gelişmeler sayesinde cep telefonu kameraları neredeyse profesyonel kamera kalitesini sağlayabilmektedir. Bu nedenle günümüzde kültürel miras eserlerine ait turistler, fotoğrafçılar veya araştırmacılar tarafından çekilmiş çok sayıda fotoğraf bulunmaktadır. Fotogrametri yöntemi sayesinde elde edilen fotoğraflardan 3 boyutlu modeller üretilebilmekte ve model üzerinden hassas metrik bilgi alınabilmektedir. Bu çalışmada Diyarbakır’da bulunan Ulucami kitabeleri, aslan-boğa kabartması ve nişleri cep telefonu ile elde edilen fotoğraflar kullanılarak Hareket Tabanlı Yapısal Algılama yöntemiyle modellenmiştir. Çalışma sonucunda kültürel miras yapıları belgelenmiştir. Ayrıca aslan-boğa kabartması üzerinden çizim yapılmıştır. Bu da fotogrametrik yöntemle elde edilen 3B modeller üzerinden rölöve çizim yapılabileceğini göstermektedir.

Extended Framework for Multispectral RTI

Reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) is a widespread technique for studying and documenting cultural heritage artifacts encompassing textural information. The principle is capturing an object from a static camera position by changing the direction of the incident light in each image. The coupling of this approach with multispectral imaging (Multispectral RTI) has shown promising results in the recent years. Considering this approach, we propose an expanded framework for the investigation and documentation of the visual appearance of surfaces, targeted to cultural heritage artifacts. In this work, we study the integrated representation of the angular and spectral components of reflectance, as well as the contributions of exploration by independent wavelengths

An Online Model Viewer for Cultural Heritage in Unity 3D

We present a prototype of a 3D model viewer for cultural heritage built in Unity 3D. The Unity engine allows for the use of custom shaders that can increase realism and provide a uniquely immersive experience with cultural heritage artifacts. Examples of custom shaders that this architecture supports include image-based specular reflections and polynomial texture mapping (PTM) for translucent materials. Furthermore, the software can be built and deployed as a stand-alone WebGL application viewable in the browser without relying on third-party content delivery services. The code for this project is open source and available on GitHub.