Untitled

Abstract

Excavated organic materials such as textile fabrics are usually heavily degraded and hence their scientific identification is rather difficult. The authors are continuing the analysis of degraded natural textile fibers using FT-IR microscopy to clarify their general characteristics at molecular level. In this report, the infrared spectra of silk fibers found at the Fujinoki tumulus were analyzed in detail. The most remarkable change of spectral patterns in degraded silk fibers compared with those of modern silk fibers was the broad superposed appearance of amide I and II absorption peaks. As a result of the investigation of the secondary structure of fibroin molecules, the main reason for the spectral deformation was found to be the increase in crystallinity associated with degradations.In this research, the FT-IR microscope at JASRI was used. It requires only very minute samples due to the bright IR light source using synchrotron radiation. This makes it convenient for the study of cultural properties.The identification of silk fibers in degraded state undoubtedly contributes to the understanding of historical features of the remains at a particular tumulus.

The Study on Excavated Bast Fibers Using Synchrotron Polarized FT-IR Micro-Spectroscopy

“…The molecules of bast fibers consist of cellulose and hemicellulose, along with additional components such as lignin, waxes and residual proteins [2]. The authors have been investigated the identification of excavated textile fibers mainly using the synchrotron infrared spectroscopy (SR-FTIR), comparing with the data of modern reference fibers [3,4]. To further investigate the characteristic of bast fibers (hemp and ramie), their fiber morphology was observed using Scanning electron microscope (SEM), because their IR spectra were similar each other, and hence it requires the aid of SEM to identify the kind of excavated bast fibers [5].…”