Cultural Heritage Project at Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO)

Filomena Salvemini*, Rachel White, Vladimir A. Levchenko, Andrew M. Smith, Zeljko Pastuovic, Attila Stopic, Vladimir Luzin, Mark J. Tobin, Ljiljana Puskar, Daryl Howard, Joel Davis, Maxim Avdeev, Sue Gatenby, Min Jung Kim, Francesco Grazzi, Kenneth Sheedy, Scott R. Olsen, Carla A. Raymond, Constance Lord, Candace RichardsJoseph Bevitt, Rachel S. Popelka-Filcoff, Claire E. Lenehan, Simon Ives, Paula Dredge, Andrew Yip, Matthew Theodore Brookhouse, Anne Gerard Austin

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO) is the home of Australia’s most significant landmark and national infrastructure for research. ANSTO operates one of the world’s most modern nuclear research reactors, OPAL; a comprehensive suite of neutron beam instruments; the Australian Synchrotron; the Electron Microscope Facility; and the Center for Accelerator Science. Over the years, the suite of nuclear methods available across ANSTO’s campuses has been increasingly applied to study a wide range of heritage materials. Since 2015 the strategic reseach project on cultural heritage was initiated in order to promote access to ANSTO’s capabilities and experties, unique in the region, by cultural institution and researchers. This chapter offers a compendium of ANSTO nuclear capabilities most frequently applied to cultural heritage research. A series of innovative, interdisciplinary, and multi-technique studies conducted in close collaboration with Australian museums, institutions, and universities is also showcased. It includes research on dating Aboriginal Australian rock art and fingerprinting the sources of ochre pigments; rediscovering the technological knowledge in the making of early coinage and ancient weapons; virtually unwrapping the content of votive mummies from ancient Egypt; and investigating and restoring the original layer of a painting that can be explored by the museum audience in a novel type of exhibition based on an immersive, interactive, and virtual environment.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationHandbook of Cultural Heritage Analysis
PublisherSpringer International Publishing
Pages375-441
Number of pages67
ISBN (Electronic)9783030600167
ISBN (Print)9783030600150
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2022
Externally publishedYes

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