Abigail Quandt

The forger’s strategy is straightforward: convince the person with the power (usually with the money) to accept the piece and pay the price. For most, this means keeping it simple, using materials and techniques that will convince on a superficial level but not invite scrutiny. The analyst evaluating the authenticity of the object must sift through the available evidence with the
goal of uncovering just those methods and materials that are consistent with an artist or an age (suggesting authenticity) or inconsistent, indicating non-authenticity. An authentication study may be seen, then, as a contest between the two competing strategies of willful forger and the disinterested analyst. With highly complex objects, a team of experts may be called upon to collaborate in the study. This paper will focus on the analysis of a particularly complex work, the “Archaic Mark” codex, which was reputed to be a manuscript version of the Gospel of Mark possibly created in the 14th century but suspected to be a fake. The analytical team consisted of curatorial and conservation staff at the University of Chicago Library Special Collections, a New Testament scholar, a prominent manuscript conservator/codicologist, and a microscopist. The multidisciplinary approach was especially fruitful, not only
proving the item false but illuminating the forger’s methods and overall strategy as well.

A combined approach, using molecular and microscopic techniques, was used to identify the microbiota associated with the Archimedes Palimpsest, an unusual parchment manuscript. SEM analyses revealed the microbial damage to the collagen fibers and the presence of characteristic cell chains typical of filamentous bacteria and fungal spores. Molecular analysis confirmed a homogeneous bacterial community colonizing the manuscript. The phyla Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria were associated with this ancient parchment; the sequences were most related to uncultured clones detected in the human skin microbiome and in ephitelium, and to cultivated species of the genera Acinetobacter and Nocardiopsis. Nevertheless, a great variation was observed among the different sampled areas indicating fungal diversity. Blumeria spp. dominated in the healthy areas of the parchment while degraded areas showed disparate fungal communities, with dominant members of the genera Mucor and Cladosporium. In addi...

... c. However, the recent analysis has revealed only a few Greek characters; there is no legible inscription present (this is confirmed also by the final analysis of Mr. Chad Kainz at the University of Chicago, as announced in Mitchell and Duncan,” “Chicago's 'Archaic Mark,'” 6, n. 17 ...

The successful transmediation of books and documents through digitization requires the synergetic partnership of many professional figures, that have what may sometimes appear as contrasting goals at heart. On one side, there are those who look after the physical objects and strive to preserve them for future generations, and on the other those involved in the digitization of the objects, the information that they contain, and the management of the digital data. These complementary activities are generally considered as separate and when the current literature addresses both fields, it does so strictly within technical reports and guidelines, concentrating on procedures and optimal workflow, standards, and technical metadata. In particular, more often than not, conservation is presented as ancillary to digitization, with the role of the conservator restricted to the preparation of items for scanning, with no input into the digital product, leading to misunderstanding and clashes of interests. Surveying a variety of projects and approaches to the challenging conservation-digitization balance and fostering a dialogue amongst practitioners, this book aims at demonstrating that a dialogue between apparently contrasting fields not only is possible, but it is in fact desirable and fruitful. Only through the synergetic collaboration of all people involved in the digitization process, conservators included, can cultural digital objects that represent more fully the original objects and their materiality be generated, encouraging and enabling new research and widening the horizons of scholarship.