Collection Care blog

3 posts from July 2018

12 July 2018

Deaf Tours at the British Library Centre for Conservation

The British Library Centre for Conservation offers four deaf tours a year with a sign language interpreter. The next tour is on Wednesday 05 September at 2.00 pm. 

Six free tickets have been reserved for the 05 September tour and are available by emailing Conservation Tours: [email protected] using the reference Free ticket BLCC 05 09. Tickets will be offered on a first come first served basis. 

Ticket information: Full Price: £10.00; Member: £8.00; Under 18: £8.00 and other concessions may be available.

All tours leave from the main information desk at 2.00 pm. Please be aware that there is a considerable amount of walking and standing as the tour lasts for approximately 60 minutes. 

Roger, wearing an apron and standing behind his desk in the conservation studio, is watching Wayne, standing to the right of Roger, as he uses sign language.,
Roger, Book and Paper Conservator and Wayne, Sign Language Interpreter. Image © British Library Board

 

Please remember that:

  • Bags and coats cannot be taken into the BLCC but can be left in the Conservation Manager’s secure office
  • Unfortunately the tour is not suitable for children under 12 
  • There is also a tour on Wednesday 06 December at 2.00 pm – information will be available on https://www.bl.uk/events/conservation-studios-guided-tour 

05 July 2018

Summer workshop: Twined end-bands in the bookbinding traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean

British Library Centre for Conservation (BLCC) Summer workshops

A close-up picture of a book, placed on its side, displaying a multicolored twined end-band, with blue, red and white.

'Twined end-bands in the bookbinding traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean’

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Dates: Monday 23rd to Friday 27th July 2018
Times: 9.30–17.30
Full price: £400, no concessions
Location: Foyle Conference Centre British Library Centre for Conservation (BLCC)
Class size: Maximum 12 participants
Level: Our workshop is designed for conservators and bookbinders with good understanding and hands on experience in making/sewing book end-bands.

Course description
Although beautiful to look at and interesting to reproduce end-bands have much more to tell about their provenance, their evolution, their purpose and their relation with other crafts.

Twined end-bands often also called woven end-bands represent a distinct category of rather elaborate compound end-bands commonly found in one variation or the other in virtually all the bookbinding traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean.

The aim of this 5-day practical course is to demonstrate and clarify the characteristics of these end-bands and explain their basic technical and decorative variations. Over the curse of the week participants will be able to make at least five different twined end-bands –a Coptic, an Islamic, a Syriac, a Byzantine, an Armenian, and a tablet woven end-band to be taken away at the end of the course.

An introductory lecture will explain their evolution in time and place, their classification and terminology, their structural and decorative features as well as their relation to fabric-making techniques. Working materials, a hand out with explanatory drawings and some reading material will be also provided.

Tutor
Our workshop is led by
Dr. Georgios Boudalis, Head of Book and Paper Conservation at the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Day 1
Tea, coffee and registration
Theoretical and technical introduction.

Morning session: Introductory lecture on end-bands, their history and function within the
evolution of historical book structure, with special focus on twined end-bands.
Afternoon session: Hands-on exploring the basic technique of twining and its structural and
decorative variations.

Day 2
The day is dedicated to a very simple Coptic and an Islamic twined end-band, the later representing probably the type of twined end-band most people are familiar with.

Morning session: Coptic split-twined end-band.
Afternoon session: Islamic twined end-band.

Day 3
As participants are becoming more familiar with twining they work on more complicated types of twined end-bands found on closely related binding traditions. Although these end-bands are structurally identical they greatly differ in decorative patterns.

Morning session: Syriac twined end-band.
Afternoon session: Byzantine twined end-band

Day 4
The day is dedicated to what is possibly the most complicated and time consuming twined endband - that found in Armenian bindings.

Morning session: Armenian end-band
Afternoon session: continue

Day 5
The final day is dedicated to the use of the ancient technique of tablet weaving to make a twined end band. This type of end-band, identified only recently and found in 15th-16th-century Russian and Byzantine bindings, is a good example how fabric-making techniques were adapted for making the end-bands in books.

Morning session: The tablet-woven end-band
Afternoon session: continue

Tutor’s biography
Georgios Boudalis is the head of the book and paper conservation laboratory at the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki/Greece. He has worked in various manuscript collections primarily in monasteries such as those of Mount Athos and Sinai. He has completed his PhD in 2005 on the evolution of Byzantine and post-Byzantine bookbinding and has published on issues of bookbinding history and manuscript conservation. His main interests are the evolution of bookbinding techniques in the Eastern Mediterranean and since 2006 he has been teaching courses on the history of Byzantine and related bookbinding both on a historical and practical basis. He is the curator of the exhibition ‘The Codex and Crafts in late Antiquity’ held in Bard Graduate centre, N.Y. between February and June 2018 and has written a monograph with the same title to accompany this exhibition, published by Bard Graduate Centre.

Previous skills, knowledge or experience
The course is addresses to both book conservators and bookbinders, it is meant to be intensive and therefore participants are required to have previous practical experience of the subject.

Equipment and Wi-Fi
All materials and tools will be provided.

Certificate
Certificate of attendance signed by British Library’s representative and course tutor will be issued at the end of the five day workshop.

Facilities and refreshments
The British Library offers a variety of options for tea/coffee and food available on site and it is conveniently located within London with easy reach to other facilities.
Food can also be taken into the British Library from home and consumed at the premises.

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02 July 2018

Unravelling an archaeological silk bundle

MPhil student Clara Low is studying Textile Conservation at the University of Glasgow. As part of her course she is completing a placement for six weeks between her first and second year, here at the British Library.

The following images were taken by Clara whilst she worked on the unfolding of a silk bundle. The Tangut silk fragment was excavated in Kharakhoto (western Gobi desert) in 1914 by Aurel Stein. Clara used controlled humidification to enable this process. She worked with Vania Assis, paper conservator for the International Dunhuang Project and Liz Rose, textile conservator. See the amazing results below.

Silk bundle resting on paper. The silk is a mottled brown in colour, and while the item is bundled, small printed designs in dark ink can be seen, and in the middle left of the bundle a glimpse of some stars in dark ink.
Or 12380/3665 before conservation. 

 

The Silk bundle partially unravelled. The brownish colour has taken a lighter hue, and also reveals some small holes and tattered edges.
Or 12380/3665 during conservation – revealing a printed design.

 

Clara is working on the silk bundle, contained in a white tray on a bench. She is using tweezers to gently unravel the bundle.
Or 12380/3665 - Clara working on the fragment.

 

The reverse side of the Silk bundle, now completely unravelled and lying flat, after conservation work. The bundle is longer at the bottom, with most of the left hand side of the fragment missing. There can now be seen some characters superimposed on a series of stars on the bottom left hand side. There are also various holes in the silk.
Or 12380/3665 after conservation – reverse showing characters, (bottom left), seams and stitching.

 

The obverse of the Silk bundle after conservation. The repeated printed pattern can be seen more clearly on this side.
Or 12380/3665 after conservation – obverse showing characters and printed stars (bottom right).

 

a close-up of the Silk fragment, showing the five-pointed stars while a fragment of text in Chinese Characters  written in black ink, is superimposed on top.
Or 12380/3665 after conservation – detail of characters.

 

Can anyone tell us what it says?

 

Update: many thanks to Andrew West for a speedy solution:

A screenshot of the Twitter account of Andrew West, who has provided information on the pictured Silk fragment, identifying the as being from the Song Dynasty around 1214 A.D.

Another Twitter Screenshot from Andrew West's account, with another picture of the Silk fragment identifying the birds depicted amongst the stars, and stating this matches the description of another piece.