Ceiling and wall paintings pose significant challenges for historic house management due to their position at the interface between the environment and building. Tight restrictions to modifications on built heritage prevent total control of the environment, resulting in temperature and humidity fluctuations. Different hygrothermal responses within the wall painting stratigraphy frequently lead to fracturing and lifting of paint layers, necessitating remedial conservation to readhere areas of detachment. Assessing the success of readhesion interventions is difficult due to the hidden nature of the treatment and, often, limited access.In this paper, we present comparative results of two different adhesive treatments employed during the conservation of the baroque ceiling painting in the Queen's Staircase at Hampton Court Palace, analysed with unilateral nuclear magnetic resonance. This non-invasive technique enabled monitoring of the adhesive systems -based on Jun Funori and BEVA® 371 -up to a depth of 3,500 um into the ceiling by providing specially resolved proton density profiles before and after treatment. Results offer a unique and pertinent assessment of treatment areas within a strictly limited timeframe. It is shown that the solvent carrier leaves the system within 24 hours, and that the ultimate deposition of the adhesive can be identified.
The conservation of the painted Roman-era reliefs in the temple of Deir el Shelwit in Luxor, Egypt, was recently initiated by the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE). As a critical step in a series of preliminary preventive conservation measures undertaken at the temple, a resident bat colony was excluded to control further deterioration of the painted reliefs and stone fabric ( Figure 1). In consultation with a bat biologist, a comprehensive humane, low-tech emergency exclusion programme was designed and implemented, which included roost location, behavioural surveys, species identifi cation, sealing of building openings, bat exclusion and the design of an alternate roost site. This programme may serve as a useful example for other conservation projects in Luxor, since it provides much-needed information on the behaviour of local bats, as well as relevant insights gained from the exclusion procedure.keywords Egypt, preventive conservation, painted reliefs, stone conservation, bats
Background
Deir el-Shelwit and the conservation projectDeir el-Shelwit is a Roman-era (fi rst-second century ce) sandstone temple on Luxor's West Bank (Zivie, 1977: 154, 157) (Figure 2). Although located in one of the most visited areas in Egypt, the temple remains isolated from tourist activity, which is concentrated around better-known sites such as the Valleys of the Kings and Queens, approximately 5 km away. The temple has never offi cially been open for visitation by the public, and in fact has been locked for a number of years.fi gure 9 General proposed location for bat house, indicated in red.
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