Corrosion of Archaeological and Historical Artefacts
Résumé
This special issue of Material and Corrosion derives from research within Working Party 21 " Corrosion of archaeological and historical artefacts " of the European Federation of Corrosion. It specifically reports on the analysis, corrosion, conservation and management of heritage metals deriving from ancient through to modern contexts. The annual meeting of Working Party members at EUROCORR is an occasion for reporting research and generating ideas and collaborations between working groups across broad international contexts. It offers opportunity to identify common ground between researchers and to focus direction of research activities. Additionally the group aims to publish proceeds of such meetings and has delivered two EFC Green Books and this special issue continues that tradition. Preserving the tangible cultural heritage faces challenges from many directions that include climate change, under-funding and a basic need for more directed research that translates into planning and management outputs. While the advances in innovative high technological tools within physics and chemistry offer strong platforms for micro-investigation of corrosion products and processes that can be used to develop successful treatments, challenges exist for funding projects that will deliver this type of heritage focused data. While more dedicated funding is necessary to develop such research, the emergence of groups dedicated to delivering sector relevant data, often on a collaborative basis, has led to the growth of conservation science as a discipline to underpin the work of conservation practitioners. The discipline was recently defined (ICCROM " Conservation Science " forum, Rome 2013) as the application of science and technology to the conservation of cultural heritage. A primary goal is developing better understanding of the structure and decay of ancient materials and linking this to the development of treatment guidelines in conservation practice. Conservation science encompasses professionals from workshops, museum and research laboratories working on the improvement of analytical tools and restoration protocols. The annual meeting of Working Party 21 at EUROCORR involves delivery of current research by workers in conservation science from public and private institutes. This issue of Materials and Corrosion contains papers derived from selected oral contributions at the 2014 EUROCORR session that took place in Pisa. The reader will gain an overview of current research across a range of areas in which working party members are active, specifically: dating of metallic materials by the application of electrochemical methods; understanding long-term corrosion mechanisms; the impact of environment on corrosion rates and longevity of heritage metals; developing treatment methods and assessing their outcomes; and the delivery of management protocols and production of sector wide guidelines on their application. This range of papers touches on the scope of conservation science in relation to its delivery to the heritage sector and the synergy between science and evidence based practice. These working party meetings serve to identify the links that will develop such synergy and to generate the ideas and collaborations that will make it possible.