Decoding the biological information contained in two ancient Slavonic parchment codices: an added historical value

Artefact Profiling: Panomics Approaches for Understanding the Materiality of Written Artefacts

This review explains the strategies behind genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, metallomics and isotopolomics approaches and their applicability to written artefacts. The respective sub-chapters give an insight into the analytical procedure and the conclusions drawn from such analyses. A distinction is made between information that can be obtained from the materials used in the respective manuscript and meta-information that cannot be obtained from the manuscript itself, but from residues of organisms such as bacteria or the authors and readers. In addition, various sampling techniques are discussed in particular, which pose a special challenge in manuscripts. The focus is on high-resolution, non-targeted strategies that can be used to extract the maximum amount of information about ancient objects. The combination of the various omics disciplines (panomics) especially offers potential added value in terms of the best possible interpretations of the data received. The information obtained can be used to understand the production of ancient artefacts, to gain impressions of former living conditions, to prove their authenticity, to assess whether there is a toxic hazard in handling the manuscripts, and to be able to determine appropriate measures for their conservation and restoration.

Non-Invasive Physico-Chemical and Biological Analysis of Parchment Manuscripts – An Overview

This work will give an overview of the scientific approach used for the study of written heritage on parchment. Elemental analysis using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) together with compound-specific analytical methods such as Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy can be applied in a non-invasive way, without the need for sampling and without inducing changes to the object. Physico-chemical investigations are complemented and further deepened by DNA- and biological analyses for the identification of the biological origin of materials and the identification of microorganisms, insects and viruses that might be present on the object which may add valuable information about its history and conservation state.

Salmonella enterica from a soldier from the 1652 siege of Barcelona (Spain) supports historical transatlantic epidemic contacts

Ancient pathogen genomics is an emerging field allowing reconstruction of past epidemics. The demise of post-contact American populations may, at least in part, have been caused by paratyphoid fever brought by Europeans. We retrieved genome-wide data from two Spanish soldiers who were besieging the city of Barcelona in 1652, during the Reapers' War. Their ancestry derived from the Basque region and Sardinia, respectively, (at that time, this island belonged to the Spanish kingdom). Despite the proposed plague epidemic, we could not find solid evidence for the presence of the causative plague agent in these individuals. However, we retrieved from one individual a substantial fraction of the Salmonella enterica serovar Paratyphi C lineage linked to paratyphoid fever in colonial period Mexico. Our results support a growing body of evidence that Paratyphi C enteric fever was more prevalent in Europe and the Americas in the past than it is today.

Natural sciences at the service of art and cultural heritage: an interdisciplinary area in development and important challenges

Our cultural heritage is a common asset that tells the story of our shared past, is part of our origin and identity and has wide social relevance. Our works of art and our heritage must be enjoyed, appreciated and preserved for future generations. To this end, a wide and varied group of professionals, including conservators, restorers, curators, bibliographers, historians, archivists, but also scientists, such as biologists, chemists, physicists and bioinformaticians, work side by side to preserve our cultural heritage. Working together in this wide range of disciplines included in the so-called 'heritage sciences' is the only plausible way to contribute to the sustainable preservation of our heritage. The great progress made in recent years in conservation and restoration work, but also in the natural sciences considered within heritage science, has provided powerful tools and strategies for analytical and experimental research into historical and cultural objects that open up new frontiers for their diagnosis, monitoring and protection. Here we highlight some of the advances and challenges faced by the natural sciences at the service of art.

The Integration of Metagenomics and Chemical Physical Techniques Biodecoded the Buried Traces of the Biodeteriogens of Parchment Purple Spots

Ancient parchments record an immense part of our cultural heritage, having been used as the main written support material for centuries. Parchment easily undergoes biodeterioration, whose main signs are the so-called purple spots, which often lead to detachment of the superficial written layer. Up to recent years, several studies have been analyzing damaged parchments from different world’s archives, trying to trace back the culprit of the purple spots. However, standard cultivation and early molecular techniques have been demonstrated to be unsuccessful, leading the parchment damage issue remaining unsolved for many years. Nowadays, some studies have explored the parchment biodeterioration dynamics by adopting a multidisciplinary approach combining standard microbiological methods with high-throughput molecular, chemical and physical techniques. This approach allowed an unprecedented level of knowledge on the complex dynamics of parchment biodeterioration. This mini review discusses the application of the combination of basic and high-throughput techniques to study historical parchments, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. In particular, it focuses on how metagenomics has been paramount for the unequivocal identification of the microbial main actors of parchment biodeterioration and their dynamics, but also on how metagenomics may suffer the distortion inflict by the historical perspective on the analysis of ancient specimens. As a whole, this mini review aims to describe the scenario of information on parchment biodeterioration obtained so far by using the integration of metagenomic with recent chemical (Raman spectroscopy) and physical (Light Transmission Analysis) approaches, which might have key implications in the preservation of many ancient documents.

The Microbiome of Leonardo da Vinci's Drawings: A Bio-Archive of Their History

Seven emblematic Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings were investigated through third generation sequencing technology (Nanopore). In addition, SEM analyses were carried out to acquire photographic documentation and to infer the nature of the micro-objects removed from the surface of the drawings. The Nanopore generated microbiomes can be used as a “bio-archive” of the drawings, offering a kind of fingerprint for current and future biological comparisons. This information might help to create a biological catalog of the drawings (cataloging), a microbiome-fingerprint for each single analyzed drawing, as a reference dataset for future studies (monitoring) and last but not least a bio-archive of the history of each single object (added value). Results showed a relatively high contamination with human DNA and a surprising dominance of bacteria over fungi. However, it was possible to identify typical bacteria of the human microbiome, which are mere contaminants introduced by handling of the drawings as well as other microorganisms that seem to have been introduced through vectors, such as insects and their droppings, visible through the SEM analyses. All drawings showed very specific bio-archives, but a core microbiome of bacteria and fungi that are repeatedly found in this type of material as true degraders were identified, such as members of the phyla Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Firmicutes among bacteria, and fungi belonging to the classes Sordariomycetes and Eurotiomycetes. In addition, some similarities were observed that could be influenced by their geographical location (Rome or Turin), indicating the influence of this factor and denoting the importance of environmental and storage conditions on the specific microbiomes.