Recognizing ancient papyri by a combination of spectroscopic, diffractional and chromatographic analytical tools

Ancient papyri are a written heritage of culture that flourished more than 3000 years ago in Egypt. One of the most significant collections in the world is housed in the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection in Berlin, from where the samples for our investigation come. The papyrologists, curators and conservators of such collections search intensely for the analytical detail that would allow ancient papyri to be distinguished from modern fabrications, in order to detect possible forgeries, assess papyrus deterioration state, and improve the design of storage conditions and conservation methods. This has become the aim of our investigation. The samples were studied by a number of methods, including spectroscopic (FTIR, fluorescent-FS, Raman) diffractional (XRD) and chromatographic (size exclusion chromatography-SEC), selected in order to determine degradation parameters: overall oxidation of lignocellulosic material, degree of polymerization and crystallinity of cellulose. The results were correlated with those obtained from carefully selected model samples including modern papyri and paper of different composition aged at elevated temperature in humid air. The methods were classified in the order SEC > FS > FTIR > XRD, based on their effectiveness in discriminating the state of papyri degradation. However, the most trustworthy evaluation of the age of papyri samples should rely on several methods.