Restoring World’s Treasures

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31178, 30 September 1966, Page 2

Restoring World’s Treasures

Many of the world’s monumental" treasures threatened by industrial pollution may be saved because of recent advances in restoration techniques .reports U.N.E.S.C.O. It is now often possible by soft X-rays to record through a painting the original crayon sketch made by the artist on his canvas. Frescos can also be removed from walls leaving behind the mural painter’s original sinopia drawing, and exposing for the art critic a stimulating new world of interest > Pictures can be transferred from worm-eaten panels and remounted: and rotting canvases can be replaced by new ones. The most delicate materials and complex structures can now be saved.

Not long ago water-logged wood was considered almost • beyond redemption. Because • of the concerted attack by ‘museum scientists in several countries, the pre-Slav village of Biskopin, in Poland, is being gradually recovered from its watery grave, as are the iron-age settlement in Switzerland, and timbers from ancient mines and wells in the United Kingdom. “Preservation medicine and surgery” means that writings and drawings on burnt or charred documents where the

ink seems to be burnt away can be recovered and deciphered. These and other feats such as the protection against biochemical corrosion of the prehistoric cave art at Lascaux, France, and the treatment of Egyptian sarcophogi against insects are recounted in an issue of “U.N.E.S.C.O. Courier,” devoted to the International Campaign for Monuments. This campaign, launched by U.N.E.5.C.0., aims to foster great public and official awareness of the need to safeguard monuments and cultural treasures of the past from the neglect and ravages of time. “U.N.E.S.C.O. Courier” says that man is still the most dangerous enemy of his creations. Not only man the warrior, the avenger, the vandal, and the iconoclast, but also the town planner, the engineer and the builder often think only in terms of practical efficiency. “By protecting historical monuments, there can be no doubt that we shall enhance the chance of seeing a more human civilisation arise, in which the knowledge of the past will find its place side by side with the discoveries with which man hopes to better his future.”