Cultural assets are cultural outcomes of human life with nature and are worth preserving. As time goes by, the cultural assets are under natural deterioration even if they are kept in ideal preserving facilities.
Among cultural assets, earthenware ar...
Cultural assets are cultural outcomes of human life with nature and are worth preserving. As time goes by, the cultural assets are under natural deterioration even if they are kept in ideal preserving facilities.
Among cultural assets, earthenware are dug up the most, reflects the characteristics of the age it was made very well, and are exhibited for educational purposes after preservation treatments. Even the earthenwares of highest historic values and scarcity are duplicated in the following instances: 1) If an earthenware is in bad condition and is likely to be damaged during exhibition. 2) If an earthenware is likely to be damaged due to moving from one place to another for multiple exhibitions. 3) Or, if an earthenware has to be exhibited in more than one place at the same time.
Duplication is a process, in which an object same as the original object is produced using a cast. There are two ways of duplication: contact duplication and non-contact duplication. In contact duplication, the cast material makes direct contact with the artifact, thus increasing the possibility of damage occurrence to the artifact if the separation with the cast goes wrong. Separating material enables the cast to come off the artifact smoothly. If inappropriate seperating material is used, an artifact may be discolored, lose some part of its surface, or be damaged due to adhesion of the cast.
This study examines the effect of seperating materials on earthenware and finds out whether Starchy grass is suitable as an seperating material. We conducted a series of experiments by making an earthenware sample and applied various seperating materials to it, then applied silicon on the seperating material as a cast material. After the experiments, decolorations were evaluated through earth color measurement. Surface loss of the earthenware and penetration of the seperating material were examined using an optical microscope.
The earth color measurement results showed that the earthen ware was darkened in all experiments except the one using Starchy grass. A close observation of earthenware using an optical microscope revealed that the cast and the earthenware were separated successfully in the experiments using Starchy grass and wax. However, it was impossible to completely wash off the wax with distilled water, leaving remaining wax in the surface of the earthenware. On the other hand, Starchy grass was washed off completely using distilled water first, then amylase to dissolve the remainders. Thus the study concluded that the Starchy grass could be used as an appropriate seperating material in a duplication.
A thesis submitted to Committee of the Graduate School of Hanseo University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master Theology in August, 2005