Limitations archaeological textiles

Long term burial of artifacts recovered in archaeological excavations often leads to friability, salt encrustation, physical damage, and severe corrosion. Field conservation is limited to such measures as are required to preserve the artifact until it may receive the attention of specialists in the museum laboratory. Typical conservation treatments for textiles, waterlogged wood, bone and ivory, cuneiform tablets, and cast and wrought marine iron are reviewed with particular emphasis on the effects such treatments may have on the subsequent technical examination of the artifact. 

Passive soil burial experiments (Table 1.3) are often done under laboratory conditions, with soil and fibers incubated in closed containers. Typically, the soil and the fibers are moistened and the incubation container is sealed to ensure an adequate supply of water for microbial activity. For example, Peacock [43] maintained 65% relative humidity in incubation containers that contained linen, cotton, silk and wool in two different soil types. The goal of this work was to simulate wet archaeological burial environments to assess the decay of textile fabrics. The order of susceptibility to biodegradation was found to be linen > cotton > wool > silk. No nutrients were added to these soils [43]. In contrast, Modelli et al. [18] used the soil burial method (Table 1.3), but added ammonium and phosphate to stimulate microbial activity to ensure these essential nutrients were not limiting in the moistened soil. These were incubated under aerobic conditions for up to 180 days. 

There are many applications of XPS, particularly in the area of surface analysis. It has been applied in such diverse areas as polymers, catalysts, textiles, corrosion, biochemistry, environmental science, geochemistry, and archaeological chemistry. It is usually used for samples of approximately 1 cm area but can sample a surface to a lateral resolution of approximately 150 /zm (limited by ability to focus X-rays). Multichannel analysis and long analysis times improve spectra, which often must be deconvoluted by statistical techniques to identify signals associated with closely spaced chemical shifts. 

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