Cultural heritage research is undergoing a transformation—driven by cutting-edge facilities like PETRA III at DESY. This keynote presents recent advances in non-destructive analysis of archaeological and historical artefacts using synchrotron radiation.
PETRA III enables ultra-precise imaging and spectroscopy, already providing new insights into the material composition, manufacturing techniques, and provenance of objects such as ancient cuneiform tablets and complex painted surfaces.
Looking ahead, PETRA IV will offer nanometer-scale resolution, allowing researchers to visualize fine pigment distributions, organic binders, and microstructural ageing processes—opening up new dimensions for archaeometry and conservation science.
These stationary large-scale infrastructures are complemented by ENCI, a mobile high-resolution CT scanner developed with the “Understanding Written Artefacts” cluster. ENCI allows in-situ 3D imaging of fragile objects, such as sealed tablets, in museums or excavation sites—without transport or damage— and has been successfully deployed in Paris and Ankara.
Together, these technologies signal a shift from isolated analyses toward data-driven, integrated approaches to cultural heritage research and preservation.

Historical plaster formulations offer valuable insights into advanced engineering in pre-modern cultures. This study examines two such gypsum-based recipes: Gach-e Koshteh from 14th-century Iran and Gesso Sottile from 15th-century Italy, both of which have unique characteristics and were essential for artistic and architectural decoration. By replicating these recipes in a laboratory setting, we demonstrate how traditional masters manipulated gypsum microstructure without additives to optimize the surface and mechanical properties of plaster for specific functional and artistic purposes.

The Koshteh recipe involves intensive kneading during plaster hydration, which retards setting and produces a platelet-like crystal morphology with alignment of the {010} faces, resulting in a hydrophilic surface ideal for water-based wall paintings. Sottile, in contrast, relies on slow recrystallization in excess water, generating loosely packed, needle-like crystals with reduced wettability—suitable for oil-based painting and gilding.

Using wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), we reveal that the Koshteh recipe yields a denser, better-packed plaster with enhanced wettability, while the Sottile recipe forms larger, more loosely arranged crystals and a more hydrophobic surface. These findings underscore the ingenuity of historical materials engineering and offer valuable insights for modern conservation and sustainable restoration practices.[1]

[1] Mishmastnehi, Moslem, Alexander ES Van Driessche, Glen J. Smales, Alicia Moya, and Tomasz M. Stawski. "Advanced materials engineering in historical gypsum plaster formulations." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120, no. 7 (2023): e2208836120.

The wealth of Pre-Columbian gold, guanín (an argentiferous gold-copper alloy, also called tumbaga) and copper objects found in Costa Rica and the country’s abundant ore deposits suggest a rich tradition of local metal artwork manufacturing. However, since the majority of artefacts was unearthed by illicit digging during large-scale infrastructure and construction projects in the 19^th century (primarily of railways and banana plantations), their find context, dating and often also true origin usually are unknown. These circumstances severely limit understanding of e.g., the chronological and regional development of metal use and the differentiation of imports from possible local production, rendering technological and geochemical studies of the objects themselves a major source of insight into these open questions.

Here, we present a study of Pre-Columbian objects of different stylistic and material types, which were found in Costa Rica and are hosted in the collections of the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica (MNCR) and the Museo del Jade in San José/Costa Rica, and the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin. The main element composition of the objects was determined non-destructively by (near) surface analysis performed with portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, and their manufacturing techniques were investigated by digital microscopy. Furthermore, detailed metallographic, compositional and isotopic analyses will be carried out on fragments sampled from 30 metal objects from the MNCR. By comparison with data of Pre-Columbian metal objects from neighbouring regions, we discuss craftsmanship techniques, gold-copper supply and technological choices in artefact production, and their possible correlation with areas of origin or different workshops.

Lead isotopes became an important method in archaeology for reconstructing the raw material provenance of, among others, non-ferrous metals, glass, and pigments. The reliability of interpretations drawn from lead isotope data essentially relies on an as complete as possible data collection from items with known raw material provenance as well as sufficient contextual information to take geological and archaeological aspect into account. Currently, combining reference data from different publications is time-consuming to impossible due to a large variety of metadata, their different levels of detail, their sometimes ambiguous definition, and imprecise information.

A core element of TerraLID, the research data infrastructure for lead isotope data in archaeology, is a metadata profile that aims to overcome the above-mentioned challenges by providing a uniform way for the description of lead isotope data and their contextual information. Developed by the TerraLID editors, representatives of the scientific community, its draft is currently available to the entire community for feedback to ensure that it will be as widely applicable as possible. As part of this feedback process, the scope of the metadata profile will be presented before some aspects will be discussed in more detail with the aim to stimulate discussion and feedback on its compatibility with current data handling workflows of the session participants.