A major new breakthrough will enable scientists to read parchments and other written materials without opening them first. Fire damage, brittleness and other forms of deterioration often make materials so fragile that they cannot be handled, even for conservation purposes.  Up to now the contents their contents have remained secret, but now they can be revealed for the first time.   

The key to the new investigative method is a team from the University of Cardiff, headed by Professor Tim Wess who are using the Diamond Light Source, a new scientific facility in South Oxfordshire. This giant machine, called a synchrotron, can be described as a series of "super microscopes". It is housed in a futuristic doughnut-shaped building which covers the area of 5 football pitches. The synchrotron fires electrons from a gun, similar to a cathode ray tube in old TV sets still use. It then accelerates the electrons to 3 Giga Electron Volts (GeV), which is the same as moving them between the terminals of a 3,000 million volt battery.

  The Diamond Light Source, Oxfordshire

Once up to full speed, the electrons inside Diamond’s storage ring will travel at nearly the speed of light. When the path of the electron beam is bent by Diamond’s powerful magnets, the electrons produce light, in the form very intense beams of X-rays, ultra-violet light and intra-red rays.  These intense light beams will enable scientists to uncover the text in scrolls and books without having to open and potentially damage them.

An example of the conservation issues the Diamond Light Source can help us tackle is the well-known problem of iron gall ink.  This kind of ink, made from oak apples, has been in use from the 12th Century, but causes parchment to deteriorate rendering precious documents unreadable.  Both paper and parchment - thinly stretched skins from cows, sheep or goats - contain collagen, which reacts with iron ink to become gelatine.  When dry, gelatine is very brittle; but as soon as it gets wet, it turns into jelly, destroying some documents if they are disturbed.

Now, Professor Wess’ team at the University of Cardiff have developed a technique that uses the Diamond Light Source to create a three-dimensional image of an iron-inked document.  The team then applies a computer algorithm to separate the image into the different layers of parchment, in effect using the program to unroll the scroll.

The team now plans to use the Diamond synchrotron's X-ray source to penetrate layers of parchment.  "This is something we can take forward with Diamond, to try to unravel the secrets inside documents that we're too scared to try to open, or that are beyond the point of conservation. I know of books which have been damaged by iron gall ink corrosion where the conservators are actually afraid to open the book. You really end up with a stencil rather than the lettering."

Iron Gall Ink Damage

As well as enabling us to read fragile and badly-damaged materials, the new technique offers the prospect of informing conservation decision in the future.  The Diamond Light Source can potentially be used to monitor gelatine levels before a document becomes too badly damaged, and better conservation decisions can be made on the basis of a more accurate understanding of the state of the parchment.