Archaic Mark

The fourth University of Chicago manuscript, known as the Archaic Mark , is a book of decidedly modest quality but of undeniable interest to philologists. As Allison noted in an unpublished description of the manuscript... 

Another example of pigment identification by IR microspectroscopy is shown in Figure 10. The bottom spectrum was obtained from a blue pigment from MS 972 (Archaic Mark) the top spectrum is a reference spectrum of Prussian blue. The band corresponding to the C=N of ferric ferrocyanide is common to both spectra. Replicate spectra of blue pigments removed from different locations in MS 972 indicate that the average frequency of this band is 2083 6 cm"1. The ubiquitousness of an iron blue in this manuscript raises doubts about the authenticity of this manuscript. 

Another important aspect of authentication is documentation of the chain of custody of an artifact. An artifact that has a clearly documented history that goes back to the artifact s discovery in a carefully excavated or recorded context lends much more credibility to authenticity than does an artifact recently marketed by an anonymous collector. For example, the Archaic Mark first appeared at the University of Chicago in 1937 and the known provenience of the Shroud of Turin can only be traced back to 1357. 

Analysis has also uncovered at least one forgery. The date of fabrication of Ms 972 from the University of Chicago Special Collections, familiarly known as the Archaic Mark, had been tentatively attributed to the twelfth century. Analysis showed that an iron blue [42] was ubiquitous in this manuscript, raising doubts about its authenticity. The iron blues are the first of the artificial pigments with a known history and an estabhshed date of first preparation. The color was made by the Berlin color makers Johann Jacob Diesbach and Johann Konrad Dippel (1673-1734) in or around 1706 [44,45]. Moreover, according to Gettens and Stout [31, 32], the material is so complex in composition and mediod of manufacture that there is practically no possibility that it was invented in other times and places. This fact, in addition to other evidence [46]—radiocarbon dating of the parchment... 

Mitchell MM, Barabe JG, Quandt AB (2010) Chicago s Archaic Mark (ms 2427) II microscopic, chemical and codicological analyses confirm modem production. Novum Testamentum 52 101-133... 

In MS 972 (Archaic Mark), the presence of Prussian blue from the infrared spectrum indicates possible restoration because Prussian blue, a synthetic dye, was not available until 500 years later. 

The many ways to make polymers can be broken into two types of reactions based on the mechanisms of the polymerization, step and chain reactions (5). This reaction classification was termed condensation or addition reactions in the past but this archaic nomenclature is slowly dying away. The labels step and chain were developed for the two types of polymerizations by Flory and Mark (5, 6). All step reactions conduct the same stepwise reaction between all reactive entities in the reaction mixture. The... 

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