CHARACTERIZATION OF SOME TEXTILE ARTIFACTS FROM PLOPIS WOODEN CHURCH – PART OF UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITES

Abstract

Churches are often similar to art museums, having numerous collections of frescoes, icons, liturgical books, old furniture and various textile pieces, some of them even from the 15th to the 19th century timeframe. Due to their great historical significance, some of these churches became part of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Plopis Wooden Church from Sisesti village (Maramures county, Romania) is an example of such sites. Generally, the textiles found in churches have a role in retaining the humidy from the environment and preventing proper ventilation, contributing to an increase in the moisture content of wood, which can lead to the development of mold. With that in mind, the regular shaking and airing of fabrics, carpets, and any other textile found inside churches, especially wooden ones, is indicated. Consequently, the identification of the fibrous composition of historic textiles and the processes involved in their aging are essential because long-term conservation of such textiles is influenced by these factors. This information facilitates the development of adequate conservation strategies. The chemical composition of fibers greatly impacts their properties. The main requirement for a technique to be suitable for characterizing historic textiles is that the said technique is non-destructive, or micro-destructive, at most. Thus, for the present study, the assessment of a texile fragment – ‘Adam and Eve’ fabric from Plopis Wooden Church, that is believed to be roughly the same age as the church – was performed via scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS).

Keywords

• textiles
• heritage
• fibers
• sem
• eds.