The Archive In The Fish Cellar / Digitistation Without Disruption

A talk given at #Papertrails19 at UCL. Introducing the sealed Ward-16 collection and our approach with technology to make it accessible without opening it.

This was presented by @lottefikkers and @dtl

Transcript

1. Materialities Of Digitisation In Heritage And Archives The Archive In The Fish Cellar Dr. David Mills d.mills@qmul.ac.uk Dr. Lotte Fikkers l.e.m.fikkers@hum.leidenuniv.nl 1 2019/7/4
2. WARD 16 ❖ Court of Wards and Liveries ❖ 436 unopened manuscripts ❖ 1542-1645
3. ❖ The records were ‘neglected, and in a perishing condition, in a Fishmonger’s house, in Fish Yard near Westminster Hall’ ❖ ’Many are destroyed by Vermin, and divers damaged by the Rain, the Room being much out of Repair, and the Roof itself very very much decayed’ ❖ ’That the old rotten Stuff might be thrown in some odd Hole, or else slung out of Doors’
4. ❖ ’The Fishmonger did what he thought fit with the Records’ ❖ ’There being none to control him’, ‘it is to be feared that many of the Records are embezzled, and the Books of Entries many of them are carried out of the Office, and are not to be found’
6. See letterlocking.org
9. Digitisation Without Disruption We really want to see inside these documents, but should we cut them open?
10. Modern Technology ❖ Advances in technology are starting to make difficult things possible ❖ In particular X-Ray techniques have shown great promise in revealing writing inside sealed manuscripts. Advances in technology some which was pioneered at QMUL (X-Ray microtomography)
11. Pros And Cons ❖ Pro ❖ Access to text, images and structure without disrupting the object ❖ Minimal intervention, objects do not even require surface cleaning ❖ As algorithms develop, older data can be re-processed to give new results ❖ Con ❖ Few places capable of imaging, processing the data is slow. ❖ Images obtained will never be as clear as photographs ❖ Some features of the document may obscure others
12. The nature of imaging In general, how do we image anything? We shine light on an object and detect what’s reflected. Light areas reflect more, dark areas less. Coloured areas absorb some colours - we see the colours they don’t absorb.
13. The nature of imaging At different wavelengths different things become visible "UV Vis IR Portrait" by Spigget - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:UV_Vis_IR_Portrait.jpg#/media/File:UV_Vis_IR_Portrait.jpg The same person photographed under UV, Visible and IR light shows different features. Sun damage shows up under UV, Skin is more translucent in IR
14. The nature of imaging X-Rays are just shorter wavelength light "UV Vis IR Portrait" by Spigget - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:UV_Vis_IR_Portrait.jpg#/media/File:UV_Vis_IR_Portrait.jpg X-Rays are just another form of light. They are made of the same stuff that the light we’re used to is - photons.
15. The nature of imaging Imaging with X-Rays has one major difference… You detect X-Rays that pass though the object, not reflected ones. You image the shadow of the object X-Rays are usually detected in transmission mode - you shine them though an object and detect what gets though. First medical X-Ray of Roentgen’s Wife
16. The nature of imaging What’s the contrast mechanism? Flesh: Bone: Ring: In this image we see flesh, bone and gold. Contrast comes from the stuff - elements the object is made from. Metals show up better than non-metals, but non metals can still be imaged.
17. The nature of imaging Heavy and light elements The common elements in materials and inks are shown in the periodic table. Paper, parchment, organic materials are essentially made of the Orange elements - they don’t image well unless there is a great thickness of them, blue is medium and pink is everything else.
18. What does this mean? ❖ If you want to use X-Ray imaging to look inside an object for obscured writing or images ❖ The substrate needs to be material that doesn’t show up too strongly (paper, parchment, wood, bark, etc) ❖ The ink should contain heavier elements (iron, copper, gold, silver, mercury, etc) ❖ You’re very unlikely to be able to see carbon ink or graphite on paper
19. What do you see if you X-Ray parchment? SA-1855/EC1 : A Sco.sh employment contract c1855. Single image, 6s exposure 25kV X-Rays Plastic tube Parchment Take a standard X-Ray Ink is visible in this flat X-Ray image, but the text isn’t really readable. Proves that high contrast TDI imaging can see ink.
20. One X-Ray Isn’t Enough Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, cu est quem alterum salutatus Habemus splendide accommodare no vis, vidit oblique usu in. Iusto admodum qui an. Ei alienum epicurei sit, nec feugait offendit mnesarchum at. Ei alienum epicurei sit, nec feugait offendit mnesarchum at. No eum legimus intellegat elaboraret, eu vide semper suavitate has. Pri clita perpetua disputando ad, usu eros noster tractatos no. Pertinax vituperatoribus vel ne, te nominavi philosophia vel. Augue appetere sea eu, sea id constituam temporibus, per duis senserit argumentum cu. Quem euismod id mel, lorem pertinax duo an. Eum elit summo mucius ex, eum vidisse adipiscing id, usu summo impedit singulis at. Ea suas utinam per, mel inermis nonumes qualisque ea. Accumsan offendit ei has. An pro fuisset recusabo, illud habemus perpetua vis at, eum elit gubergren id. Mel ex detraxit aliquando similique. In aeque noster mentitum est. Ad reque vitae adipiscing vim. Exerci appetere et nam, id duo eirmod malorum. Ipsum viris alterum ea qui. Eum elit summo mucius ex, eum vidisse adipiscing id, usu summo impedit singulis at. Ea suas utinam per, mel inermis nonumes qualisque ea. Accumsan offendit ei has. An pro fuisset recusabo, illud habemus perpetua vis at, eum elit gubergren id. Mel ex detraxit aliquando similique. In aeque noster mentitum est. Ad reque vitae adipiscing vim. Exerci appetere et nam, id duo eirmod malorum. Ipsum viris alterum ea qui. Eum elit summo mucius ex, eum vidisse adipiscing id, usu summo impedit singulis at. Ea suas utinam per, mel inermis nonumes qualisque ea. Accumsan offendit ei has. An pro fuisset recusabo, illud habemus perpetua vis at, eum elit gubergren id. Mel ex detraxit aliquando similique. In aeque noster mentitum est. Ad reque vitae adipiscing vim. Exerci appetere et nam, id duo eirmod malorum. Ipsum viris alterum ea qui. One X-Ray just gives you all the text on top of each other. Assuming you can see anything anyway. What you need is a 3-D Xray
21. 3-D X-Rays We call these CT Scans
22. Single “Slice” from the X-Ray data. Shows a swiss-roll view of the parchment rolls. Bright specks are ink. We can see the rolls consist of several items co- rolled.
23. Rendered image from the scan data. Shows the outside of one of the rolls, including ink that was obscured by dirt.
24. A cut-away video
25. Maths To The Rescue How do we go from scan data and image to something readable? Algorithms developed by QMUL, Cardiff University and MIT
26. Unknown Text Experiment The small scroll was obtained from the Norfolk Archives teaching collecEon. It was very sEff, difficult to unroll without causing damage and the textual content was unknown. Small parchment roll and cross section view
27. Virtual Unrolling Algorithms developed by colleagues in the school of computer science at Cardiff University, were able to “unroll” the XMT data, making the wriEng visible Virtually unrolled (Cardiff)
28. Comparison Our conservaEon consultant on the project, Meagen Smith, was able to unroll the scroll for verificaEon purposes. Meagen Smith used a combination of humidification and pressing to unroll and flatten the scroll. Was cut to this shape to be used as part of a lamp shade.
29. 16th century Diss Heywood burnt parchment roll (Norfolk Record Office MC1841/2) Another parchment roll, tis was burned and fused. Scanned at QMUL and virtually unrolled by Cardiff.
30. Very early results from the Ward-16 parchment rolls The algorithms take a fair bit of manual intervention
31. This is another example from ward-16. You can see text running in two different directions - we are probably seeing writing on both sides of the parchment.
32. Conclusion ❖ What does this mean for the Archive In The Fish Cellar and other items in general?