Ancient administrative handwritten documents: X-ray analysis and imaging.
Handwritten characters in administrative antique documents from three centuries have been detected using different synchrotron X-ray imaging techniques. Heavy elements in ancient inks, present even for everyday administrative manuscripts as shown by X-ray fluorescence spectra, produce attenuation contrast. In most cases the image quality is good enough for tomography reconstruction in view of future applications to virtual page-by-page `reading'. When attenuation is too low, differential phase contrast imaging can reveal the characters from refractive index effects. The results are potentially important for new information harvesting strategies, for example from the huge Archivio di Stato collection, objective of the Venice Time Machine project.
Faculté des Sciences de Base, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
F
F
Albertin
Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), Villigen, Switzerland.
A
A
Astolfo
Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), Villigen, Switzerland.
M
M
Stampanoni
Department of Physics and Earth Sciences, University of Ferrara, Italy.
Eva
E
Peccenini
Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
Y
Y
Hwu
Laboratoire d'Humanités Digitales, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.
F
F
Kaplan
Faculté des Sciences de Base, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
G
G
Margaritondo
D004282:Documentation / Q000266:history*; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D007281:Ink; D007558:Italy; D008373:Manuscripts as Topic / Q000266:history*; D012031:Refractometry; D014956:Writing / Q000266:history
X-ray fluorescence; ancient inks; ancient manuscripts; cultural heritage; differential phase contrast; phase contrast; refractive index imaging