Investigations of historical textiles from the Imperial Pavilion (Hunkar Kasri) of the new mosque Eminonu-Istanbul (Turkey) by multiple analytical techniques

This article presents some approaches for chemical and physical characterization of materials applied to a specific category of cultural material, historical textiles. The investigation and characterization of historical objects by non-destructive methods are important since they are important sources of reference for cultural studies. In this study, two historic textiles (the original one and its repaired part), obtained from the ceiling decorations of Imperial Pavilion (Hunkar Kasri) of the New Mosque Eminonu-Istanbul (Turkey) were analyzed using Attenuated Total Reflectance-Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR), Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) techniques, for the purpose of material identification. The results showed that the investigated samples were linen fabric. EDXRF results revealed that in the original part of the textile, metallic gold was used for gilding. No gold gilding was observed in the repaired part of the textile. In the paint layers of the original part of the textile, both lead white {2PbCO3.Pb(OH)2}, and gypsum {CaSO4.2H2O} were used as white pigment, but in the repaired part, the white pigment was mainly gypsum, and contained only a small amount of the lead white. The FTIR analysis was successfully used in quantifying the degradation of historic textiles in terms of the crystalline structure of cellulosic fibers.