Conservation and Characterization of Arabic Papyrus in Egyptian National Library and Archives, Egypt

An Arabic Papyrus sheet stored at the Egyptian National Library and Archives was previously placed on unknown secondary support, and interleaved between two glass sheets enclosed with adhesive tape. This papyrus has various deterioration issues especially in the upper section where there is a large embedded stain causing the papyrus to stick to the secondary support and the glass sheet. Conservation treatments conducted involved cleaning, fibre alignment and rehousing, scientific investigations including visible light microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy with attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR), and Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive Spectrometry (SEM-EDS) were conducted to identify materials involved. A lack of information in the historical records about the excavation and previous conservation treatments increase the importance of the research. The analysis showed that the secondary support is gelatine and Arabic text was written in carbon ink. The gelatine support was successfully removed from the papyrus and the papyrus document was re -housed.