Heritage Science最新文献

The spatiotemporal distribution of intangible cultural heritage in Fujian Province, China, and the factors that influence it were explored using multiple spatial scales. The samples include five batches of Chinese national-level and six batches of Chinese provincial-level intangible cultural heritage items, totaling 554. The samples involve city-scale, county-scale, and traditional dwellings, and the analysis uses various methods, such as gravity migration theory and the GeoDetector model. The results show that, in terms of historical timescales, the moving trajectory of the center of gravity of the intangible cultural heritage distribution in Fujian Province involves reciprocation from north to south, and the center moves south in time from the pre-Qin period to the modern period. Spatially, intangible cultural heritage in Fujian Province forms an overall aggregate pattern, among which traditional skills fall into an aggregate pattern; five categories, including traditional drama, fall into an aggregate-random pattern; and four categories, including traditional medicine, fall into a random pattern. The traditional art category and other intensive distribution areas are located in coastal areas, and the traditional dance category is scattered in northwestern Fujian Province. Experiments on the factors influencing intangible cultural heritage distribution were conducted at the city and county levels. At the city level, human geography factors, such as the resident population, urbanization rate, and gross domestic product, have a greater influence on distribution. At the county level, the influence of physical geographical factors clearly increases. The dominant factors for coastal cities are the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), average precipitation, and coastline, and that for inland cities is elevation. From the perspective of categories, the dominant factors of traditional music and Quyi are human geography factors, and those of other types of intangible cultural heritage are the synergistic effects of physical geography and human geography. The conclusions of this study are helpful for systematically protecting and developing the intangible cultural heritage industry and improving research theories and methodological systems of the spatiotemporal distribution and mechanism influencing intangible cultural heritage.

Urbanization is one of the milestones in the development of human society. Many regions in the southern parts of ‘the old world’ demonstrating an early emergence of agriculture also witnessed the flourishing of some of the earliest cities. Recent, yet still sparse, archaeological evidence appears to indicate a relatively later time for early urbanism in central Eurasia. However, given its vital geographic location and cultural nexus between East and West, more attention should be paid to the sedentary communities and their cities in oases amid the vast droughty desert, particularly in light of the rapidly increasing number of publications on early pastoralism and related communication routes along mountain chains and rivers. This study reveals the trajectory of urbanization and its role in the establishment of an exchange network in Xinjiang’s oasis region via reconstruction of the chronological sequence of the local societal history of the Baiyang River Basin along the southern piedmont of the Eastern Tianshan Mountains. A thorough archaeological investigation and refined radiocarbon dating programme was carried out and coupled with information from historical documentation within a Bayesian statistical framework. The results indicate three pulses of local urbanization during: the Early Iron Age, Tang–Yuan period, and Qing Dynasty, respectively. Combining this with evidence from other parts of Xinjiang, we re-evaluate the role of oasis urbanism in the promotion of trans-regional exchange.

A comprehensive multi-analytical investigation was conducted on a piece of Longquan celadon excavated from the Shengbeiyu shipwreck site in the East China Sea. This study focused on a representative type of tubular bio-concretions attached to the submerged celadon, believed to have been formed through the construction activities of a marine tubeworm belonging to the benthic phylum of Polychaeta Annelids. The research examined the microstructure, composition and adhesion form of these tubular bio-concretions, aiming to elucidate their developmental and attachment patterns from a biomineralization and biofouling perspective. The tubular bio-concretions were found to have a bimineralic composition, with notably higher content of aragonite than calcite, and display diverse yet highly ordered microstructures. The presence of organic matter within the bio-concretions indicates an organic matrix-controlled crystallization model, commonly observed in the construction of benthic calcareous tubes. Microscopic analyses revealed the primary degradation microstructures and corresponding phases of the glaze to which calcareous tubes attached. These findings closely resembled the corrosion characteristics observed in submerged ceramic glaze without bio-concretion attachments, as documented in earlier studies. OM and SEM observations also indicated that the calcareous tubes intricately intermeshed with the cracked glaze layer of the celadon. Additionally, Raman spectroscopic analysis detected the presence of proteins at the interface, likely residual adhesives secreted by fouling organisms to cement themselves to the settlement substrata, suggesting the occurrence of organic-mediated bio-adhesion mechanisms. These results shed new light on the formation process of bio-concretions and their interaction with attached underwater ceramics. A simplified formation mechanism of this biologically-induced degradation has been discussed.

This article reports on the discovery of pararealgar and semi-amorphous pararealgar in Rembrandt's masterpiece The Night Watch. A large-scale research project named Operation Night Watch was started in 2019. A variety of non-invasive analytical imaging techniques, together with paint sample research, has provided new information about Rembrandt's pigments, materials, and techniques as well as the current condition of the painting. Macroscopic X-ray fluorescence, macroscopic X-ray powder diffraction and reflectance imaging spectroscopy identified the presence of arsenic sulfide pigments and degradation products of these pigments in the doublet sleeves and embroidered buff coat worn by Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch (central figure to the right of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq). Examination by light microscopy of two paint samples taken from this area shows a mixture of large sharp-edged tabular yellow and orange to red pigment particles, and scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray analysis identified these particles as containing arsenic and sulfur. Using micro-Raman spectroscopy, the yellow particles were identified as pararealgar, and the orange to red particles as semi-amorphous pararealgar. Synchrotron-based X-ray diffraction allowed visualization of the presence of multiple degradation products associated with arsenic sulfides throughout the paint layer. The discovery of pararealgar and semi-amorphous pararealgar is a new addition to Rembrandt's pigment palette. To contextualize our findings and to hypothesize why, how, and where Rembrandt obtained the pigments, we studied related historical sources. A comprehensive review of historical sources gives insight into the types of artificial arsenic sulfides that were available and suggests that a broader range of arsenic pigments could have been available in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century than previously thought. This is supported by the use of a very similar mixture of pigments by Willem Kalf (1619–1693), a contemporary artist based in Amsterdam. Together with the condition of the particles in the paint cross sections, this brings us to the conclusion that Rembrandt intentionally used pararealgar and semi-amorphous pararealgar, together with lead–tin yellow and vermilion, to create an orange paint.

In this research, microblasting with powdered vegetable particles (almond and hazelnut husks, cork saw dust and rice husks) and cellulosic fibres was used to analyse their usefulness for cleaning unpainted wooden cultural heritage and their effects on surface morphology. Tests were made on mock-ups of old pine wood from wooden boards with original soiling. Before cleaning powdered particles were characterised by SEM–EDS to analyse their morphology and elemental composition. Wood surfaces were analysed before and after cleaning by means of digital microscope (white and UV light) and SEM–EDS to evaluate cleaning effectiveness, assess effects on the wood surface, and determine eventual soiling and powdered particles larger than 1 µm that might remain in the surface after the procedure. Results indicate that microblasting with powdered vegetable and cellulosic media is a useful and safe technique to remove soiling from wood, including micrometric particles embedded in its texture, with negligible surface changes. Furthermore, residues left after the cleaning procedure are very scarce and chemically compatible with the substrate because they are mainly composed of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, the main components of wood.

Semantic segmentation of point clouds of ancient buildings plays an important role in Historical Building Information Modelling (HBIM). As the annotation task of point cloud of ancient architecture is characterised by strong professionalism and large workload, which greatly restricts the application of point cloud semantic segmentation technology in the field of ancient architecture, therefore, this paper launches a research on the semantic segmentation method of point cloud of ancient architecture based on weak supervision. Aiming at the problem of small differences between classes of ancient architectural components, this paper introduces a self-attention mechanism, which can effectively distinguish similar components in the neighbourhood. Moreover, this paper explores the insufficiency of positional encoding in baseline and constructs a high-precision point cloud semantic segmentation network model for ancient buildings—Semantic Query Network based on Dual Local Attention (SQN-DLA). Using only 0.1% of the annotations in our homemade dataset and the Architectural Cultural Heritage (ArCH) dataset, the mean Intersection over Union (mIoU) reaches 66.02% and 58.03%, respectively, which is an improvement of 3.51% and 3.91%, respectively, compared to the baseline.

The assessment of landscape visual quality (LVQ) holds significant importance in the preservation and advancement of traditional villages. One challenge in measuring human perception lies in establishing a connection between public preferences and landscape characteristics. This study conducted an analysis of social media data from Anyi traditional villages in China to address this issue and identified eight human perceptions: naturalness, ancientness, colorfulness, variety, uniqueness, ingenuity, vividness, and pleasantness. A total of thirty characteristic indicators with potential explanations for LVQ were determined by research group through field investigations. A questionnaire survey was developed to assess human’s preferences using 82 traditional village photos, and scores for the eight perceptions were obtained. The logistic regression was employed to establish distinct perception models, with perceptions serving as the dependent variables and characteristic indicators as the independent variables. Nomograms were subsequently utilized to visualize regression results and display the correlation between these two factors. The findings suggest that nomograms facilitate intuitive determination of the weights assigned to characteristic indicators in perceptual models, as well as their influence on LVQ. This work provides a reference for decision-making related to the adaptive protection and development of traditional villages, thereby helping to enhance the competitiveness of tourist destinations.

Traditional Chinese settlements (TCSs) embody millennia of human and cultural history, with the core culture serving as their essence. However, any damage incurred by these TCSs can result in the loss of core culture. In the era of China’s digital transformation, there has recently been a significant push toward digital reforms within TCSs. Thus, this paper introduces a traditional settlement digitalization (TSD) framework with a specific focus on enhancing the preservation of TCS landscape gene through the perspective of landscape gene information chain theory. This research uses the Nanxun traditional settlement (TS), Huzhou, Zhejiang, China, the first TS listed as a World Cultural Heritage Site in China, as a case study, extracting and identifying the area landscape gene and digital visualization status. This article identifies the landscape gene information chain of the Nanxun TS and redesigns its digital visualization and application scheme under the TSD framework. This study reveals the notion of a digital landscape gene characterized by four key attributes: identical, interactive, immersive, and intelligent. The results of this study will help guide the sustainable protection, application and planning of the Nanxun TS and promote the study of other sections of landscape gene theory. This research not only contributes to the development of landscape gene information chain theory but also provides guidance for the digital transformation of other TCSs and cultural heritage sites.

The study analyzes the black color factors of black-burnished pottery excavated from the Pungnap Fortress and the Seokchon Tomb during the Hanseong period of the Baekje Kingdom. The current hypothesis surrounding the pottery’s black color factors suggests the use of magnetite, manganese oxide, and carbon. To compare the results of the black pottery, red pottery was used as the control group. To identify these black color factors, each hypothesis was investigated using several spectroscopic techniques. However, it was difficult to detect sufficient magnetite and manganese oxide on the surface of the black pottery to account for its black color. In contrast, a larger amount of carbon was located on the surface and core of the black pottery compared to the red pottery. These results indicate that the black factors can be credibly attributed to carbon rather than to magnetite or manganese oxide. The firing temperature of the black-burnished pottery was estimated from the mineral composition based on X-ray diffraction, and the firing atmosphere was deduced from the redox conditions based on the reduction index from Mössbauer spectroscopy. In addition, seven pieces of pottery excavated from Gunsu-ri Temple Site and Buyeo Ancient Tomb from the Sabi period of Baekje were investigated and compared the five pieces of pottery from the Hanseong period. Although the results were based on a limited number of potteries, various firing temperatures and redox atmosphere for pottery from the Hanseong and Sabi periods were carefully proposed.

The Sarinah historic building transformation project in Jakarta, Indonesia (2020–2022) is an adaptive reuse of the original building formed through a scientific conservation process. Therefore, this research identified, restored, and remastered the Sarinah relief sculpture of alto-relievo (high relief) and mezzo-relievo (medium relief). The invasive demolition method was used to form an atrium space to show the reappearance of the artwork by dismantling two layers of building floors above where the relief was found. The non-invasive method was implemented (a) by identifying damaged mapping artifacts, (b) by restoring, cleaning, and repairing the broken artifacts, and (c) by remastering the 3D model. All activities were supported by digital applications such as the Cartesian diagram coordinates, AutoCAD, Adobe Photoshop, Zbrush software, and close-range photogrammetry. The case study's contribution to heritage science showed the process used to restore alto-relievo and mezzo-relief within time, space, and technology limitations.