Heritage Science最新文献

The study presented focuses on material research of La Tène rivets and represents the very first study conducted into this class of archaeological finds from the Bohemian region. The rivets examined come from two significant archaeological sites situated in this geographical area—a hillfort Kolo near Týnec nad Labem and an oppidum in Stradonice. The sets of the rivets selected for the study were dated to the Late La Tène period (second–first century BC)—in the context of Western Europe, the term Celtic period can also be found. Thorough material research of the objects utilised a range of methods such as scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive analyser, atomic absorption spectrometry, X-ray micro-tomography scanning, laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, and Raman spectrometry. As a result, the research has identified and described three different technologies used to produce the rivets. The rivets uncovered there were mostly produced by casting from a bronze alloy or by putting wrought iron pins into the bronze melt of rivet heads. In addition, a minority of the rivets were produced using forged wrought iron with their heads plated with a very thin bronze plate. The results of the elemental analysis showed that several of the rivets and most of the rivet heads were made of bronze alloys with a tin content of 2–10 wt.%. The lead content of bronze alloy rivets from both sites varies from 0.2 to 10.1 wt.%. It can be assumed, that lead was intentionally added to the bronze melt used to produce the majority of the artefacts examined. Also, several bronze rivet heads were found to be decorated with enamel, which is a type of soda-lime-silica high lead glass coloured with crystals of Cu₂O (the Colour of the enamel was predominantly red). In conclusion, two different groups of enamels were distinguished: (a) enamels with PbO up to 20% and (b) enamels with a higher content of PbO reaching up to 40%.

Digital museums play a crucial role in facilitating users' access to and exploration of digital cultural heritage resources. However, exploring the factors influencing user engagement with these digital museums from a user experience perspective remains essential. This study evaluates the factors driving user continuous behavioral intention towards the digital museum of Beijing’s central axis, integrating the new task-technology fit (TTF) and the new unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) models, and introducing perceived enjoyment, design aesthetics, and perceived cultural value as additional variables. Analyzing survey data (n = 377) utilizing structural equation modeling (SEM), the study identifies the following key findings: (1) the task and technology characteristics of digital museums significantly impact the TTF; (2) performance expectancy, effort expectancy, design aesthetics, perceived enjoyment, and perceived cultural value all positively impact user continuous behavioral intention; (3) the technological characteristics of digital museums were observed to positively impact users' effort expectancy; but (4) the TTF and social influence did not have no significant impact the user continuous behavioral intention. These findings offer valuable insights into the factors driving users' continuous behavioral intention to use digital museums of cultural heritage, offering practical guidance for future development and optimization of these digital museums, and highlighting specific implications and suggestions for enhancing the user experience.

This essay analyzes a robust body of C and N stable isotopes from human and animal collagen and plant remains (n = 423) in the area of Lower Yangtze River dating to 8000–4300 cal. BP, combined with new isotopic data recovered from the Zhelin site in Shanghai, to explore the dietary differences between coastal region and the inland core area of the Liangzhu culture (5300–4300 cal. BP). Our findings suggest that the food variety of the peripheral inhabitants of the core area of the Liangzhu culture may became less diverse over time, while at the same time their reliance on a few domesticated species (rice and pigs) increased. It may be a result of the growing economic and cultural influence of the populations in the inland core Liangzhu area.

Accurate and timely data collection of material deterioration on the surfaces of architectural heritage is crucial for effective conservation and restoration. Traditional methods rely heavily on extensive field surveys and manual feature identification, which are significantly affected by objective conditions and subjective factors. While machine vision-based methods can help address these issues, the accuracy, intelligence, and systematic nature of material deterioration assessment for large-scale masonry towers with complex geometries still require significant improvement. This research focuses on the architectural heritage of masonry towers and proposes an intelligent assessment system that integrates an improved YOLOv8-seg machine vision image segmentation model with refined 3D reconstruction technology. By optimizing the YOLOv8-seg model, the system enhances the extraction capabilities of both detailed and global features of material deterioration in masonry towers. Furthermore, by complementing it with image processing methods for the global visualization of large-scale objects, this research constructs a comprehensive intelligent assessment process that includes "deterioration feature extraction—global visualization—quantitative and qualitative comprehensive assessment." Experimental results demonstrate that the intelligent assessment system significantly improves the performance of target feature extraction for material deterioration in masonry towers compared to existing methods. The improved model shows improvements of 3.39% and 4.55% in the key performance metrics of mAP50 and mAP50-95, respectively, over the baseline model. Additionally, the efficiency of global feature extraction and visualization of material deterioration increased by 66.36%, with an average recognition accuracy of 95.78%. Consequently, this system effectively overcomes the limitations and subjective influences of field surveys, enhancing the objectivity and efficiency of identifying and analyzing material deterioration in masonry towers, and providing invaluable data support for the subsequent preservation and restoration efforts.

Funerary masks played a crucial role in ancient Egyptian burial practices, as part of the rituals to ensure a successful afterlife. This study presents the first comprehensive analysis of a gilded mummy mask from the Roman period in Egypt from the collections of The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen. Portraying a young female, the mask belongs to a distinctive group of mummy masks, whose origins can be identified to be coming from the Dakhlah and Kharga oases. The construction of the mask (plaster, textiles) and the constituents of its polychromy (pigments, binding media) was analysed using various non- and micro-destructive methods: imaging, cross-section analysis, optical microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy coupled to energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Additionally, samples were taken for palaeoproteomic analysis with liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry. A wide range of pigments such as yellow and red ochre, carbon-based black, and Egyptian blue were identified, reflecting common materials in polychromy in Egypt during the Roman period. Notably, indigo was detected, suggesting its usage in mixtures to render purple hues. Analysis of adhesives and media identified plant gum and collagen-based animal glue. Proteomic analysis identified Equus asinus (donkey) as the predominant protein source for the collagen-based glue. The results shed light on the materials and techniques employed in ancient polychromy in Egypt in the Roman period, further enriching our understanding of artistic practices at the time.

This article presents a thorough overview of gel-based cleaning methods used in art conservation. It covers the evolution of traditional approaches and the development of advanced gel systems. The paper examines the structure, characterization, and classification of gels, as well as their mechanical properties, which are crucial in art conservation. Various types of gels, including hydrogels, organogels, xerogels, semi-IPNs, and microgels, are discussed in detail, highlighting their unique properties and suitability for specific conservation applications. The advantages, limitations, and applications of both natural and synthesized polymers that form the basis for these gels are also analyzed. Case studies are presented to demonstrate the practicality and effectiveness of gels in cleaning different materials such as paper, paintings, metals, and textiles. These case studies showcase successful removal of stains, pollutants, and unwanted layers while preserving the integrity and aesthetic value of the artworks. By contributing to the existing knowledge on gel-based cleaning approaches in art conservation, this comprehensive review establishes a foundation for future research and development in this field. The review concludes with a discussion on the challenges and potential future directions in the development and optimization of gel-based cleaning methods for art conservation. Overall, this article is a valuable resource for researchers, conservators, and students in the field of art conservation, providing essential information and insights into the use of gels as effective and safe cleaning agents.

The tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng was unearthed in 1978 at Leiguudun in Suizhou City, Hubei Province, China. This is the largest wooden coffin in rock pit and vertical cave in the Warring States period in China. The large wooden coffin components provide reliable material data for the study of the feudal burial system in the pre-Qin period and have high value. In this paper, the wooden coffin excavated from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng was studied. By understanding the composition of wood, studying the weight gain rate, shrinkage rate, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and compression resistance, the wood reinforced by rosin and epoxy resin was compared, and the reinforcement effect and principle of the two reinforcement methods were discussed. The study found that the wood properties of rosin reinforced group were better than those of epoxy reinforced group in the aspects of compressive strength, weight gain rate and volume shrinkage rate, and the mechanical properties of wood were significantly improved. In addition, methanol or ethanol can be used to dissolve the rosin shellac in this strengthening process, which can achieve reversible strengthening treatment. The results provide valuable examples and research ideas for the selection of different conservation techniques of large wooden cultural relics unearthed in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River during the Warring States Period.

Point cloud semantic segmentation is a key step in the scan-to-HBIM process. In order to reduce the information in the process of DGCNN, this paper proposes a Mix Pooling Dynamic Graph Convolutional Neural Network (MP-DGCNN) for the segmentation of ancient architecture point clouds. The proposed MP-DGCNN differs from DGCNN mainly in two aspects: (1) to more comprehensively characterize the local topological structure of points, the edge features are redefined, and distance and neighboring points are added to the original edge features; (2) based on a Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), an internal feature adjustment mechanism is established, and a learnable mix pooling operator is designed by fusing adaptive pooling, max pooling, average pooling, and aggregation pooling, to learn local graph features from the point cloud topology. To verify the proposed algorithm, experiments are conducted on the Qutan Temple point cloud dataset, and the results show that compared with PointNet, PointNet++, DGCNN, GACNet and LDGCNN, the MP-DGCNN segmentation network achieves the highest OA, mIOU and mAcc, reaching 90.19%,65.34% and 79.41%, respectively.

Intangible cultural heritage is the carrier of national memory and a historical witness. Exploring the spatial distribution and chronological evolution of intangible cultural heritage is of great significance to understand the cultural integrity and historical continuity. Taking the intangible cultural heritage along the Grand Canal as an example, this study carries out spatial deconstruction based on the extent of the spread of intangible cultural heritage and reveales the aggregation pattern through spatial autocorrelation analysis. Then, the historical process and the spatial center of gravity are shown through an evolution tree model. The influencing factors are illustrated via the methods of Geodetector and qualitative analysis. The results are as follows: (1) The two ends of the canal exhibit obvious advantages in the number of intangible cultural heritage items; however, the existence of a spatial mismatch at the city–county level makes the southern endpoint occupy a dominant position. (2) Although there is a high–high aggregation pattern along the whole canal, 29.82% of the counties are distributed widely with low–low aggregation. (3) The spatial center of intangible cultural heritage items from different historical periods generally presents a changing path from north to south and returning north. (4) Intangible cultural heritage items are mainly distributed in areas with a prosperous culture, a high level of economic development, and strong policy and financial support from government. Changes in the natural environment, population migration, economic development, war disasters, and canal shipping have profound impacts over time. This study provides a new idea for the methodological advancement of spatial distribution of intangible cultural heritage, as well as studies on local cultural identity and regional consistency.

DT systems, characterized by real-time capabilities, high precision, and high integration, have become essential in various domains. In the context of cultural heritage, a DT system encompasses comprehensive information about heritage sites, contextual data, and expert knowledge, forming a complex dynamic system. The substantial volume of information and diverse sources significantly increases the cognitive load for management personnel in understanding on-site situations. This study, from the perspective of situational awareness, introduces X-reality technologies (VR and AR) into DT systems for cultural heritage risk management. The aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of different X-reality technologies in cultural heritage risk perception and their impact mechanisms. A total of 184 participants were divided into two groups and experienced three different applications (2D desktop, VR, and AR). Using situational awareness rating techniques, participants' responses were measured across three dimensions: attention resource demand, attention resource supply, and understanding of the situation. SEM was employed to estimate the stability of the scale data. The results indicate that, compared to traditional 2D desktops, both VR and AR demonstrate advantages in enhancing heritage risk situational awareness. However, in AR mode, no significant advantages were found in the dimensions of attention resource demand and attention resource supply compared to traditional 2D desktop applications. Furthermore, a significant difference in immersion between VR and AR was found to affect the attention resource demand dimension. Although the results suggest differences in the interactivity of VR and AR in affecting the attention resource demand dimension, no significant differences were found. By comprehensively understanding the functional mechanisms of X-reality technologies in influencing cultural heritage risk situational awareness, this study provides design references for constructing DT systems for cultural heritage risk management. Additionally, it offers insights for heritage site managers, experts, and stakeholders to enhance risk perception efficiency, promoting more effective risk assessment, analysis, and strategic decision-making, thereby reducing damage to cultural heritage.