Cultural Heritage

Understanding the past is an important part of our present, whether it is to read hidden text for the first time in centuries, to understand how ancient peoples developed technologies, to examine the preserved remains of fossils over millions of years, or to understand how to maintain and conserve these treasures for centuries to come. Cultural Heritage covers a wide range of scientific endeavors and materials at SSRL, from ceramics to paintings and pigments, and wooden ships to ancient manuscripts and prehistoric fossils, bringing scholars from Physics, Geology, Chemistry, Material Science, Biology and the Humanities together. We use a variety of x-ray techniques at SSRL, including x-ray fluorescence imaging, spectroscopy, and diffraction, to peer into the chemistry and structures of the past, shedding light on how objects were created, preserved, or can continue to be conserved. Many of the investigations in Cultural Heritage also inform other scientific areas, from understanding how x-rays can alter the materials being measured, to the development of multi-analytical tools that can measure the optical properties of the specimen while being measured at the synchrotron beam line.