Gold Thread Research Articles

THE STUDY OF A RELIGIOUS DECORATIVE TEXTILE BELONGING TO VANK CHURCH IN ISFAHAN

The Persian craft of textile making is one of the ancient arts and crafts with traditions originating more than two millennia ago. The golden age for textiles begins with the Safavid Era. In this paper, investigation and study of a Persian sacrament sample was carried out with due regard to the importance of its religious meaning. One aim of selecting this object for practical and theoretical research was based on a consideration of the ancient minority religion people of Iran. This four-piece object of velvet needlework (48.5 × 45 cm) comes from the eighteenth century ad with a kind of special sewing termed 'Djulffaic sewing' with a silver stripe braiding tinsel and 'sermee' (a type of tinsel with a cylindrical form), tapestry, sequin ornamentation and 'zaghareeh dozy' (ornamentation with braiding and sequins). It is made with very fine needlework using silver and gold thread. This ornamented textile with a symbolic design was made to hang in sacred ceremonies over the bishop's staff. It is made of four separate panels joined together. In order to choose the best course of restoration, the investigation was carried out taking account of the importance of technique and method of manufacture, diagnosis of deterioration and its causes. After study and analysis in the laboratory, conservation and restoration was performed. Operations included cleaning, bleed tests in order to select the best way to wash the textile, supporting and mending the object with different techniques such as sticky thread, couching and so on.

출토 금직물의 강화처리에 관한 연구

This study is on the consolidation process of the conservation process of fabric with golden thread found in relics. Gold film was glued to pieces of Korean paper and satin using hide glue, which is a natural adhesive and resin Paraloid B-72, which is a liquid type adhesive. This study examines the types and concentration of the adhesives that are appropriate for consolidating gold film on fabric. The advantage of hide glue is that it is harmless to humans and has a high stability. This glue is also believed to be the closest to the adhesive that was used when the relic was originally made. Its weakness is that it is stiff and weaker than chemical glues, but after being washed with water the adhesion level increases. Therefore, hide glue is appropriate in the following instances: a) when washing after consolidation b) when the substrate of gold threads are significantly damaged, and c) when treating greater sized relics that take a longer time to work on. However, Paraloid B-72 has a better adhesion and flexibility than hide glue, but tends to spread out into a greater area, and the area where it is applied tends to absorb less water than before the application. In addition, it is noxious and can be harmful in long-term exposure. Therefore, Paraloid-72 is appropriate in the following instances: a) when consolidating the fabric after washing, and b) when working on smaller relics and consolidating smaller parts of a relic. The necessary concentration levels for consolidants for gold film are 30% for liquid type hide glue and at least 10% for Paraloid B-72 in order for the gold film to stay intact on the fabric during washing, consolidation, exhibition, and conservation.

Stimuli-Responsive Wettability of Nonplanar Substrates: pH-Controlled Floatation and Supporting Force

We have prepared pH-responsive planar and nonplanar substrates by chemical modification of a rough gold surface with pH-responsive 2-(11-mercaptoundecanamido)benzoic acid (MUABA). The rough surface exhibits a pH-responsive behavior with an exceptionally large change in contact angle (CA) as a function of the pH, from nearly superhydrophobic (CA of about 144 degrees ) to superhydrophilic (CA of near 0 degrees ). The relationship between pH and the supporting force of gold threads coated by MUABA has been investigated. The pH-responsive coating on the gold thread can provide bigger supporting forces at low pH than at high pH due to the hydrophobicity in the former case. In addition, the change of surface wettability can influence its floatation as well, therefore providing a new approach for controlling the motion of gold threads on water.

The School for Dangerous Girls (review)

Reviewed by: The School for Dangerous Girls Deborah Stevenson Schrefer, Eliot. The School for Dangerous Girls. Scholastic, 2009 [352p] ISBN 978-0-545-03528-6$16.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 7-12 The titular school is Hidden Oaks, and our protagonist, Angela, is a fifteen-year-old troublemaker, sent to the school after she and her criminal boyfriend defrauded her grandfather, leading to his stroke. At the school Angela finds depersonalizing strictures, savage authorities, and a mysterious history of tragedy, and it looks like the abuse is inescapable. She also, though, finds bolstering friendships with some of the other girls and possible romance with a teacher's son, and these galvanize her determination to extricate herself from the school's clutches. The reform school gone evil is a popular and appealing plot, and Schrefer has extensively crafted both Angela and Hidden Oaks, so there's lots of backstory provided. In fact, that extensive crafting turns from a virtue to a flaw as the various levels and divisions of Hidden Oaks are slowly revealed and become tediously overelaborate (indeed, the strangely named categories of "purple thread girls" and "gold thread girls" tip into the absurd). The writing is pedestrian, and the plodding storytelling squanders too much energy to allow this to succeed as a campy bad-chicks-fight-back tale. The reading is sufficiently undaunting, though, that YAs lured by the B-movie concept may find diversion in Angela's blend of catfighting and self-actualization. Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois Used by permission of Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Clinical Image: Gold thread acupuncture, a hedgehog‐like appearance

Clinical Image: Gold thread acupuncture, a hedgehog‐like appearance

The Traditional Silk Brocade of Palembang “Songket”

Songket is a woven cloth decorated with motifs interwoven using supplementary gold thread. Palembang songket is characterised by a red background on which various motifs, such as flowers, stars and rhomboids, are interwoven with gold thread. The figures are categorised into three groups, i. e. flora, fauna and others, and these are combined to create certain patterns and designs. According to one artisan, all figures and patterns are traditional ones which have been woven for a long time.It is likely that songket was already woven in Palembang by noblewomen in 1670. Since the gold thread was previously made of real gold of 14 carats, this cloth was very expensive and restricted to noblewomen before the Palembang sultanate period was abolished by the Dutch in 1824. The regulation of wearing songket seems to have been strict; the design and colour which a noblewoman could wear was regulated according to her social status; songket was an important status marker of noblewomen. During the Dutch colonial period (1824-1942), the use of songket expanded to noblemen and the wealthy Chinese and Arabs. In the 1930s, songket weaving started to decline due to the Great World Depression and shortage of materials, and it was driven to the verge of extinction in the 1950s.In the mid-1960s, however, songket weaving was successfully revived, recruiting young people as new weavers and introducing new materials and technologies. Cheap versions of songket woven with artificial gold thread started to be sold in the market. The cheap versions of songket, the eclipse of the concept of ‘nobility’ after the Second World War and adat (customary law) protocols which stipulated that people should use songket in rites of passage encouraged the ordinary, less wealthy people of Palembang to wear and use songket in ceremonies. Songket has indeed been democratised and popularised, and its use has become a ‘new’ tradition for ordinary people. Nevertheless, it is also true that differences in the quality of songket still tend to differentiate the wearers in terms of wealth and status. Nowadays the regulations of wearing songket are no longer strict. People can wear whatever colours and designs they like. People try to follow adat as closely as they can when they use and wear songket, and songket has become an identity marker of people of Palembang.New styles of songket fashion are produced to attract younger female customers. These activities to expand the market are necessary for the development of the songket industry of Palembang. New designs and colour combinations are important factors which would attract new customers inside and outside Palembang. On the other hand, old people of Palembang tend to prefer traditional colours and designs; Palembang songket culture seems to maintain an appropriate balance between commercial-based culture and the local, relatively conservative one so far. No matter whether the design is a traditional or modified one, people of Palembang realise their identity when they wear Palembang songket.

Soft tissue augmentation of the cheeks detected on intra- and extraoral radiographs: a case report

Augmentation material used in plastic surgery such as facelift procedures can be radiopaque and thus become visible on extra- and intraoral radiographs. These objects may obscure anatomical structures and mask critical findings, therefore leading to potential misinterpretation of otherwise successful images. The present report describes a case in which the radiographic intra- and extraoral data are partly masked by a superimposed radiopaque mesh, which was suspected to originate from a facelift procedure. A gold thread lift was confirmed by the plastic surgeon.

A Tripodal [2]Rotaxane on the Surface of Gold

Tripodal [2]rotaxane, 3, and the structurally related axle, 2, incorporating a viologen moiety, a crown ether, and three thiol anchoring groups have been synthesized. Analogous monopodal derivatives, 1, have also been prepared. Self-assembled monolayers of the above tripodal and monopodal systems on gold have been studied by cyclic voltammetry. It has been shown that a thiol anchoring group is required to attach the monopodal viologen 1 to the surface of gold and that the maximum surface coverage of 1 corresponds to 2.7 x 10(-10) mol.cm(-2). The adsorbed monopodal viologen 1 does not thread bis-p-phenylene-34-crown-10 ether, 6. However, the tripodal axle 2 adsorbed on the surface of gold threads the crown ether 6 to form a hetero [2]rotaxane. In the case of the tripodal axle 2, the surface coverage is 7 x 10(-11) mol.cm(-2), while for the tripodal [2]rotaxane 3 the surface coverage reaches 1.1 x 10(-10) mol.cm(-2).

Inside Front Cover: Towards Understanding Why a Superhydrophobic Coating Is Needed by Water Striders (Adv. Mater. 17/2007)

AbstractGold threads modified with superhydrophobic or normal hydrophobic coatings are used as model system in the study of the contribution of a superhydrophobic coating of water striders to their floating and movement on water surfaces. After depositing Pt aggregates on one of its ends, the gold threads are able to move in the H2O2 aqueous solution. The superhydrophobic coating is proven to be able to decrease fluidic drag during motion, as described by Xi Zhang and co‐workers on p. 2257.

Towards Understanding Why a Superhydrophobic Coating Is Needed by Water Striders

have discovered that the legsof water striders have superhydrophobic coatings that bearhierarchical structures of many oriented tiny hairs with finenanogrooves. The superhydrophobic coatings were believedto be responsible for the water striders’ floating. However,since many other kinds of insects, such as mosquitoes, canfloat on the water surface with only normal hydrophobic coat-ings, it is not clear why superhydrophobic coatings are re-quired for the water strider’s legs. In the work reported here,using gold threads that are modified with normal hydrophobicor superhydrophobic coatings as model systems, we studied towhat extent the hydrophobicity contributes to the goldthread’s floating and movement on the water surface. In addi-tion, combining experimental results and theoretical forceanalysis, we report, for the first time, that deformation of thegold thread contributes to the total supporting force of thewater on the floating gold thread. For easily deformedfloatingobjects, such as very thin gold threads or legs of water striders,the contribution of deformation is significant compared to theother components of the supporting force. Our results suggestthat the superhydrophobiccoating of a water strider’s legs cannot only provide a larger supporting force, but also help to de-crease the insect’s total density beneath the water surface andallow it to move faster on the water surface. Therefore thesuperhydrophobic coating is indispensable, although the nor-mal hydrophobic coating provides enough supporting forcefor the water strider merely to float. We anticipate that ourresults provide a deeper understanding of the mechanism ofaquatic insects’ floating, and hope that it may lead to furtherresearch on drag-reducing materials and rapid underwatermotion.In an attempt to understand why a surperhydrophobic sur-face is needed by water striders, we modified gold threadswith superhydrophobic coatings (contact angle >150°) ornormally hydrophobic coatings (contact angle ≈110°).

Application of XRF and AMS Techniques to Textiles in the Mongol Empire

AbstractX-ray fluorescence (XRF) and Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) techniques were applied to four pieces of ancient Mongolian textiles in order to assist cultural studies of the most significant era of medieval western Asian culture. Radiocarbon dating using Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) was performed in order to determine the historical age of these pieces. Then, X-ray fluorescence analysis using Synchrotron Radiation (SR-XRF) was carried out in order to obtain elemental maps as well as investigate their constituent elements. Results showed that the textiles were produced between13th and 14th century, and possessed elements such as Au, Cu, Fe and Ti were traced in these pieces whereas Au was used to make gold threads. Cu, Fe and Ti are well known as metallic mordant. In addition, high resolution images were obtained using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to observe the textile structure and their weaving conditions. The whole collected data can assist in bringing into light and facilitate a deeper understanding of the medieval Mongolian cultures, the textile technology, staining techniques, material process technology of the Mongolian Empire and their relations with the neighboring east and central Asian cultures, such as Persia, India and China.

Generation of Gold Thread from Au(III) and Triethylamine

Gold threads were spontaneously generated at room temperature from a combined solution of aqueous HAuCl4 and triethylamine. Initially, some reduced gold nanoparticles were self-organized into one-dimensional (1D) nanowires, which then developed into three-dimensional (3D) microscale threads of gold. After aging, the self-organized gold thread grew spontaneously, accompanied by the generation of new buds to start new branches. TEM images show that the gold thread is composed of elastic materials; in which, colloidal gold nanoparticles reduced by triethylamine serve as the bricks, whereas elastic substances formed during the reaction serve as the mortar, which holds together the gold particles. The results of IR and 1H NMR spectroscopy demonstrate that the elastic materials consist mainly of alkane-like substances. Examination of the 1H NMR spectrum of triethylamine under the conditions of the reaction shows evidence of the occurrence of oxidative N dealkylation. The observed isotope effect demonstrates the existence of O-D cleavage resulting from the degradation of carbinolamine, which is the reported oxidation route of amines. Triethylamine acts here not only acts as a stabilizer and a reducing agent, but also as a precursor to build the alkane-like material upon which the gold thread is formed.

The use of metal threads and decorations in Byzantine-Greek Orthodox ecclesiastical textiles

Gold threads, like silk, are luxury materials engated in the manufacture of the finest and most expensive fabrics. While the use of metal threads in European and Near-Eastern fabrics has been the subject of detailed analytical investigation, few studies have focused on the nature of Byzantine-Greek metal threads. The aim of this research is to identify the morphological and technological characteristics of the metal threads used for the decoration of Greek Orthodox ecclesiastical textiles between the 13th and the 19th centuries.

European Metal Threads in Swedish Churches 1600–1751

Textiles from Swedish churches are conserved at the Conservation Department of the Swedish National Heritage Board. Eightynine samples of metal thread from 29 objects dating from between 1619 and 1751 have been examined in order to investigate production methods, preservation and environmental effects with regard to metal threads in ecclesiastical textiles. Examples of possible Milanese gold threads are discussed as well as specimens from Queen Kristina's funeral clothing, but the main focus of this study is on the 14 episcopal copes made for the coronation of King Adolf Fredrik in 1751. The specimens were examined by a variety of methods including visual inspection, stereo magnification and scanning electron microscopy–energy dispersive X-ray analysis (SEM-EDX). The environmental conditions and storage materials were recorded for each object. The metal used for most of the specimens is silver gilt. The objects are in relatively good condition, probably due to good quality and careful handling. The metal shows varying degrees of corrosion. Possible reasons such as air pollution and conservation treatment are discussed. The findings will form the basis of continuing work on a database of metal threads at the National Heritage Board. The plan is for this data to be made available to conservators and others working with similar issues.

Acute pancreatitis induced by traditional acupuncture therapy

Although rare, it is possible for acute pancreatitis to develop after blunt or penetrating abdominal trauma. We report here a very rare case of acute pancreatitis induced by traditional acupuncture therapy. A 42-year-old woman with a low body mass index had suffered from functional dyspepsia for one year. She visited an acupuncture clinic and underwent long needle (13 cm) and gold thread needle (3 mm) acupuncture therapy. Five hours later, she presented at our emergency room complaining of severe periumbilical pain. Levels of serum amylase (1162 U/l, normal <220 U/l), and lipase (5195 IU/l, normal <60 IU/l) were high, and an abdominal computed tomography scan showed a diffusely swollen pancreas and ill-defined infiltration of the peripancreatic fat, indications of possible acute pancreatitis. Multiple small acupunctured gold thread needles were also found on the anterior abdominal wall and back muscles. After excluding other possible causes of pancreatitis, traumatic pancreatitis was diagnosed as an adverse effect of the long acupuncture needle therapy.

Combining a Layer‐by‐Layer Assembling Technique with Electrochemical Deposition of Gold Aggregates to Mimic the Legs of Water Striders

A superhydrophobic coating on gold threads (see Figure) has been fabricated by combining layer-by-layer assembly, electrochemical deposition, and surface modification. It can be used to mimic the legs of water striders, potentially leading to an understanding of the mechanism of structure reducing and quick propulsion.

Tapestry in the Renaissance: art and magnificence

Tapestries - the art form of kings - were a principal element in the ostentatious magnificence used by powerful Renaissance rulers to broadcast their wealth and might. During the period between 1460 and 1560, courts and churches lavished vast sums on costly weavings in silk and gold thread from designs by leading artists. In this illustrated volume, contributors analyze some of these tapestries; examine the stylistic and technical development of tapestry production in the Low Countries, France and Italy during the Renaissance; and discuss the contribution that the medium made to the art, liturgy and propaganda of the day. The survey presents 45 surviving tapestries along with some 20 preparatory drawings and cartoon fragments. Featured are examples designed by Italian masters Raphael, Giulio Romano and Perino del Vaga. In addition, works by Netherlandish designers such as Bernaert van Orley and his followers are included, demonstrating how elements of the northern design tradition were fused with Italianate innovations, resulting in an extraordinarily rich aesthetic, ideally suited to the medium.

Le vêtement grec dans sa matérialité : découvertes et recherches récentes

The discoveries which have enriched our documentation and the researches of the last decades have given a more precise idea of the material aspects of Greek clothes. As regards fibres, we can distinguish the existence of local materials for everyday use and the importation of valuable ones, such as Chinese silk. As far as weaving is concerned, the Lefcadi tunic gives an example of «flokati » and numerous illustrations show the importance of «sprang ». The taste for vivid colours is certified even at the classical period, as well as the taste for patterns which show an outstanding figurative vein. The Vergina material is an example of the use of gold threads and of the art of tapestry liable to replace needle embroidery. Advanced knowledge in dies specifically concerns purple. We also have a better idea of the types of clothes, whether the ordinary peplos or specific ones, as seen, for example, on an Auriga statue in Mozia and a Thessalonic relief devoted to Artemis, or again borrowed from the Orient or nomads steppe.

Histological Study of the Skin with Gold Thread Implantation

A histological study was done on the skin biopsies of 10 female patients, 4 months after the implantation of at least two gold threads, introduced in the anterior subdermal region of the arm. The presence of a tuberculoid granuloma around the gold thread was evident. As there was considerable production of reticulin in the tuberculoid granuloma, the authors suggest that the presence of this tuberculoid granuloma in a dermoepidermic position which forms a “sleeve-like coating” around the thread would be responsible for skin support and consequent wrinkle reduction.

Two Byzantine craftsmen in fifteenth-century London

It is generally thought, largely on the basis of a letter of Cardinal Bessarion, that, by the 1440s, the Byzantine Empire had been completely overtaken by the West in all spheres of technical expertise. This idea is challenged the evidence of some documents the Public Record Office in London which show that, between at least 1441 and 1483, two gold wire drawers from Constantinople, named Andronicus and Alexius Effomatos, lived and worked in the English capital. It is argued that these craftsmen were welcomed because they specialised in making gold thread of a type which had long been manufactured in Byzantium but was superior in strength and economy to that produced in England. Indeed, since the earliest evidence for native English production of this type of gold thread dates from the period of their residence in London, there is at least the possibility that they actually introduced their craft into England, reversing the relative balance of technology as it is usually portrayed.