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Experts have always played an important role in heritage planning, practice, and theory. There is a wealth of literature published every year regarding heritage and its cultural significance. Experts also contribute to heritage planning and developing policy documents. Still, literature is rarely used as a source of primary research to systematically reveal and compare experts’ opinions on the cultural significance of built heritage. Analyzing them as a whole is costly and time-consuming, especially on built heritage, when much has been written about. While the automation of methods has proven to mitigate such restrictions in other fields, as digital humanities, their application in heritage planning, practice, and theory is still scarce. Hence, this paper aims to investigate the potentials of AI models (e.g., multi label text classification) in analyzing scientific documents, revealing the cultural significance of built heritage, values and attributes. This was done to better understand the similarities and differences between the experts’ opinions. Yazd, Iran, is taken a case study, with a particular focus on windcatchers, a key attribute conveying cultural significance, of outstanding universal value, due to its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This paper has three subsequent phases: 1) state of the art on the application of AI in heritage planning; 2) methodology of data collection and data analysis related to coding values and attributes of windcatchers, addressed in relevant documents; 3) preliminary findings on the experts’ opinions over values and attributes of windcatchers. Results contribute to the scientific discussion, revealing the cultural significance of windcatchers of Yazd from experts’ point of view. Besides, the potential of AI for heritage planning is revealed in terms of (de)coding and measuring the cultural significance of built heritage from the available documents, showing the opinions of experts with various backgrounds. This model can be applied to other key attributes in Yazd and other case studies and scales to support heritage planning, practice, and theory. Heritage & Architecture

International audience; Being a part of the cultural heritage, skeletal human remains and grave objects are often the only evidence of people who lived many years, or even centuries or millennia, ago, and their preservation for future generations is thus of the utmost importance. The first task in analyzing skeletal remains is to build a biological profile of the individual, including in particular a sex estimation. Recently developed proteomic sex analysis, based on the detection of two sex-dependent forms of the amelogenin protein in tooth enamel, could offer a minimally-invasive and reliable approach applicable to both recent and past populations. The aims of the present study are: 1) to validate the proteomic sex estimation approach with a delicate, minimally-destructive protocol using protein etching in recent and sub-recent identified samples of adult individuals; 2) for the first time, to evaluate the invasiveness of the extraction of amelogenin protein from teeth for proteomic analysis via scanning electron microscope (SEM) and microcomputed tomography (micro-CT); 3) to apply the method to an archaeological sample of unknown adult and juvenile individuals. An assemblage of 60 teeth (32 males and 28 females) of recent and sub-recent origin was used to validate the approach. A sub-sample of 20 teeth (10 males and 10 females) was used to assess the invasiveness of the amelogenin extraction procedure. For the application of the method, samples of 15 adult and 32 juvenile teeth, both originating from medieval populations, were used. Proteomic sex estimation achieved 100% accuracy in this sample. An SEM and micro-CT comparison of the dental surfaces before and after chemical treatment showed an approximately 10% loss of enamel and only 2% loss of dentine. The suitability and minimally-invasive character of the protocol for proteomic analysis in biological sex estimation was demonstrated, as was its applicability to archaeological samples.

Workshop 'Grotius’ Contribution to Commercial and Maritime Law', 10 februari 2023 Item does not contain fulltext

This volume fills a gap in current research on the Hellenistic Peloponnese, complementing and challenging traditional interpretations by adopting new perspectives on its complex social and political history in response to emerging trends in research. By examining aspects of the region's interstate relations, contemporary politics and modes of representation that have been relatively little studied to date, it affords a much more well-rounded picture of the Hellenistic Peloponnese and a rich basis for broadening scholarly debate and stimulating further research on the area. Each chapter promotes interdisciplinary approaches to a wide range of ancient evidence and material culture, and offers a renewed understanding of how socio-political transformations unfolded within the region. Together they shed new light on key agents of the period and their interactions, material evidence and political history both in and beyond the Peloponnese – from the enduring Macedonian influence in the 3rd century BCE and the violence and terror tactics deployed within the Achaian Koinon, to strategies of identity construction and memory politics wielded by local elites – and will be crucial points of reference for graduate students and scholars with an interest in the region.

In this study, an IPN based enzymatic levan-polyacrylamide hydrogel (EL-PA) was developed and characterized for its structural, morphological, rheological properties and swelling kinetics to underline hydrogel properties and its potential use in paper conservation. The addition of levan also led to changes in the viscoelastic behavior of the hydrogels, with the complex viscosity of EL-PA samples showing pronounced dependence on shear rate. The swelling and the overall surface area of the hydrogels were increased with the addition of levan into the polymer network. Source associated structural differences were found to be negligible such that both microbially produced linear and enzymatically produced branched forms of levan performed equally well. Solvent loaded hydrogels were then applied on an artifact, a 19th century book of Namık Kemal, and investigated using FTIR, SEM, XRD and colorimetric analysis. Old adhesive layers were successfully removed, and hydrogels showed good compatibility and ease of application. This study has shown that levan has improved hydrogel properties and levan based systems bear high potential in conservation science.

This work was supported by the FEDER funds through the COMPETE 2020 Programme and National Funds through FCT-Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the project ref. UIDB/50025/2020-2023,and H2020 EIT Raw Materials MineHeritage Project (PA 18111). Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s) The Palace of Knossos, located on the island of Crete, Greece, is one of Europe's most important archaeological sites, serving as a testament to the Minoan civilization. Situated near the Mediterranean Sea, it is in close proximity to the seaport, airport, and industrial areas. Decay products commonly found in historical monuments within or near urban areas, such as black crusts and salt efflorescence, are also prevalent at the Palace of Knossos. To better understand the characteristics of the type of deterioration compounds found on cement in historical reconstruction zones, as well as their possible relationship with factors influencing the deterioration process, a multi-analytical approach was designed for the study of these materials. The results indicate that the black crusts primarily consist of gypsum and carbonaceous matter. However, the efflorescence salts are predominantly composed of thenardite instead of halite, despite the palace's proximity to the coastal area. These results may contribute to ongoing and future maintenance and preservation efforts for the monument. publishersversion published

28th PSA biennial meeting, 10 november 2022 Item does not contain fulltext University of Pittsburgh 1 p.

In many places around the world, soils preserve ancient wooden elements. These are related to archaeological objects such as shipwrecks, water wells or tools, but also to piled constructions supporting buildings and waterworks. In countries like the Netherlands, a significant part of the built environment still stands on wooden piles and some have been in function for more than 600 years. For the preservation of this wood, it is essential that it remains waterlogged. Due to climate change, more and longer periods of drought are expected during which groundwater levels drop. Previously waterlogged wood that finds itself above groundwater loses its water protection as oxygen becomes available and wood degrading fungi become active. It is unclear how much time it takes before these detrimental processes start to have an effect. Therefore, to better protect buried wood, an understanding of the degradation processes under dynamic groundwater levels is needed. This includes the conditions under which the fungi become active and when these conditions occur in and around the wood. To address this complex issue, two experiments were conducted: Firstly, under optimal laboratory conditions, the rate of degradation over time by different fungal species in different wood species was determined. Subsequently, the changing conditions in and around wooden piles after lowering the groundwater level were examined in a field experiment. The latter experiment showed that the wood-soil matrix provides long-term protection against degradation. The soil types appear to be an important factor as well as the moisture content of the wood, both determining for how long the protection can be maintained. Together with the degradation speed by fungi, a risk assessment can be made for specific conditions when drought leads to loss of archaeological cultural heritage or to instability of our (monumental) buildings and structures.