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Image right: Alexander Graham Bell

In 2011, scholars from three institutions—National Museum of American History Curators Carlene Stephens and Shari Stout, Library of Congress Digital Conversion Specialist Peter Alyea and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Scientists Carl Haber and Earl Cornell—came together in a newly designed preservation laboratory at the Library of Congress to recover sound from those recordings made more than 100 years ago. Using high-resolution digital scans made from the original Volta discs, they were able to hear the word “barometer.”

The museum’s collection has about 400 of the earliest audio recordings ever made, including the 200 from Bell’s Volta lab. A reflection of the intense competition between Bell, Thomas Edison and Emile Berliner for patents following the invention of the phonograph by Edison in 1877, these recordings, along with supporting documents, were offered to the Smithsonian by each inventor in his lifetime.

“These recordings were made using a variety of methods and materials such as rubber, beeswax, glass, tin foil and brass, as the inventors tried to find a material that would hold sound,” said Stephens. “We don’t know what is recorded, except for a few cryptic inscriptions on some of the discs and cylinders or vague notes on old catalog cards written by a Smithsonian curator decades ago.”

Image left: Volta Laboratory recording made by Alexander Graham Bell, #287654-11. (Photo by Carl Haber, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

Now, through a collaborative project with the Library of Congress and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the mystery of what is on these recordings is being unraveled. To date, the team has successfully submitted six discs—all experimental recordings made by the Volta Laboratory Associates between 1881 and 1885—to the sound recovery process.

The recordings in the museum’s collection are in fragile condition due to their age and experimental nature. Until now, the technology to listen to the recordings without damaging the discs and cylinders was not available. The noninvasive optical technique used in this project to scan and recover sounds was first studied by Berkeley Lab in 2002–2004 and installed at the Library of Congress in 2006 and 2009. The process creates a high-resolution digital map of the disc or cylinder. This map is then processed to remove evidence of wear or damage (e.g., scratches and skips). Finally, software calculates the motion of a stylus moving through the disc or cylinder’s grooves, reproducing the audio content and producing a standard digital sound file. For more information, visit www.irene.lbl.gov.

Recovering sound from the six Volta discs is the first step in an ongoing project to preserve and catalog the museum’s early recording collection and to provide increased access to the collection and its contents for both the academic community and the public. The content of the recordings, studied in conjunction with the innovative nature of the physical discs and cylinders, provides insight into a variety of topics—from the invention process of these well-known 19th-century labs to speech patterns of the late 19th century.

Image right: Electrotyped copper negative disc of a sound recording, deposited at the Smithsonian in October 1881 and sealed in a tin box. Content: Tone; male voice saying: “One, two, three, four, five, six”; two more tones. Click this LINK to listen. (Photo by Brian Ireley)

This project has been made possible with funding from a variety of sources. The National Museum of American History received a special preservation grant from the Grammy Foundation and support from the museum’s Jackson Fund. The museum is looking for additional funding to continue the examination of other recordings in its exceptional collection. The Institute of Museum and Library Services provided funding to Berkeley Lab through a grant to further develop the optical scanning technology and bring it into use in support of collections and special projects around the world.

The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, holds nearly 147 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The Library serves the U.S. Congress and the nation both on-site in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill and through its award-winning website at www.loc.gov.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world’s most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab’s scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.

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Image right: A color-enhanced image from a CT scan of a violin from the collection of the National Museum of American History that reveals the thickness of the wood  of the violin’s front as well as past repairs.

“For more than a century scientists have pursued the mysteries of the natural world through the study of specimens in Smithsonian collections,” said Cristián Samper, director of the National Museum of Natural History. “The presence of the Siemens CT scanner in our anthropology department has revolutionized the way we look at everything from mummies and dinosaur fossils to the Smithsonian’s priceless collection of Stradivarius violins. This donation and its importance to Smithsonian research are significant.”

Image left: Bruno Frohlich, right, and Smithsonian anthropologist Dave Hunt prepare a mummy from Mongolia for entry into the the Natural History Museum’s CT scanner. (Photo by Don Hurlbert)

The National Museum of Natural History is one of the world’s preeminent research institutions in the field of the natural sciences. With more than 126 million specimens in its collections—the largest in the world—the museum is a repository for examples of the diversity of life on Earth and humanity’s common heritage. Under the leadership of anthropologist Bruno Frohlich, Smithsonian scientists and curators use the CT scanner on a daily basis to enrich understanding of the natural world and people’s place in it.

Research in the Smithsonian CT laboratory focuses on employing the CT scanner with the objective of understanding and studying objects, secure in the knowledge that they can be used and studied again in the future. “Most often scientific analytical research is associated with destructive methods,” said Bruno Frohlich. “Normally we have to destroy objects in order to study them. Nondestructive and noninvasive methods, such as CT scanning, not only enable us to study objects with greater attention to detail, but also ensure the preservation of the object and leaving it intact for future generations to study.”

This 53-second video consists of a series of images taken with a Siemens Somotom CT scanner of a mummy at the Department of Anthropology in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. The individual shown here is a male who died at about 40 years of age; a relatively mature age by ancient Egyptian standards. He is believed to have lived in Lower Egypt sometime between the 25-26th Greco-Roman periods, which is between 600 B.C. and about 150 A.D., or roughly 2,500 to 1,900 years ago.

While the CT scanner belongs to the National Museum of Natural History and has been used extensively to study the mummy collections, it is also available for use with other Smithsonian collections. “We use CT equipment to study valuable and precious objects such as the musical instruments in Smithsonian collections,” Frohlich said. “Happily, after a study is completed, musicians can still play the instrument. This is a remarkable breakthrough for science and museum conservation.”

Research findings made possible through the use of the new CT scanner were announced at an Oct. 27 presentation to Washington, D.C., public school elementary students at the National Museum of Natural History’s public hands-on Forensic Anthropology Lab. Four high school students from the museum’s youth internship program, “Youth Engagement Through Science,” visited Frohlich’s lab to observe the CT scanner on the mummy collection. The program included remarks by Samper, Hemani, Frohlich and Spiegel.

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What’s possibly the most calming yet nerve-racking job in the world? Come behind the scenes of the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art to find out!

The conservation and scientific research of ancient Asian art takes a large team of experts from many fields. In order to bring thousands of treasures from the East to the galleries of the Smithsonian in downtown Washington, D.C., several critical steps toward ensuring the objects’ continued longevity must be taken.

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Now, for the first time scientists at the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute have developed a fast and reliable method to date silk. This new technique, which is based on capillary electrophoresis mass spectrometry, has great potential to improve the authentication and dating of the priceless silk artifacts held in museum and other collections around the world.

Image right: Chinese silk textile from the Warring States period (475-221 B.C.) (Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.org)

The new method uses the natural deterioration of the silk’s amino acids, a process known as racemization, to determine its age. As time goes by the abundance of the L-amino acids used in the creation of the silk protein decreases while the abundance of D-amino acids associated with the silk’s deterioration, increases. Measuring this ever changing ratio between the two types of amino acids can reveal the age of a silk sample. Archaeologists and forensic anthropologists have used this process for decades to date bone, shells and teeth, but the techniques used required sizeable samples, which for precious silk objects are almost impossible to obtain.

Image left: This Japanese artwork, “Pair of Cranes on Branch,” was made from ink and color painted on silk. It is one of hundreds of artworks containing silk fibers in the collections of the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries.

“Many things an animal makes are protein based, such as skin and hair. Proteins are made of amino acids,” explains Smithsonian research scientist Mehdi Moini, chief author of a recent paper in the journal Analytical Chemistry announcing the new dating method. “Living creatures build protein by using specific amino acids known commonly as left-handed [L] amino acids. Once an animal dies it can no longer replace the tissues containing left-handed amino acids and the clock starts. As L- changes to D-amino acids [right handed], the protein begins to degrade,” Moini explains. Measuring this ever-changing ratio between left-handed and right-handed (D) amino acids can be used as a scientific clock by which a silk’s age can be estimated. In controlled environments such as museum storage, the decomposition process of silk is relatively uniform, rendering D/L measurement more reliable.

Image right: This Order of the World War medal with its colorful ribbon is one of many artifacts in the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum that contain silk.

The Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute team used fiber samples taken from a series of well-dated silk artifacts to create a chart of left-hand and right-handed amino-acid calibration ratios against which other silks fabrics can be dated. Those items included new silk fibers; a silk textile from the Warring States Period, China (475-221 B.C.) from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; a silk tapestry (1540s) from the Fontainebleau Series, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria; a silk textile from Istanbul (1551-1599) from the Textile Museum, Washington, D.C.; a man’s suit coat (1740) from the Museum of the City of New York; and  a silk Mexican War flag (1845-1846) from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Previously, the scientists write, dating silk has been largely been a speculative endeavor that has mostly relied on the historical knowledge of a silk piece, as well as its physical and chemical characteristics.” The new technique takes about 20 minutes, and requires the destruction of about 100 microgram of silk fiber, making it preferable over C14 (carbon 14) dating, which requires the destruction of so much material that it is prohibitive for most fine silk items.

The article “Dating Silk by Capillary Electrophoresis Mass Spectrometry,” appared in the scientific journal Analytical Chemistry, and was authored by Mehdi Moini; Mary Ballard, Smithsonian senior textile conservator; and Museum Conservation Institute intern Kathryn Klauenberg.

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The squeezes were created in the early 20th century by the German archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld (1879-1948), a prominent scholar on the ancient Near East, as a way to record intricate inscriptions on monuments and other stone buildings. They were formed by pressing layered, wet, moldable paper into an inscription and leaving it to dry, creating a 3-D mirror-image representation of the original. Created to serve as temporary reference materials, the squeezes have become vital to continued research for archaeological sites that are no longer accessible.

Image right: Detail of cuneiform squeeze from the Ernst Herzfeld papers, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.

The squeezes contain Arabic script, Middle Persian and Cuneiform impressions from archaeological sites such as Pasargadae, Persepolis, Naqsh-i Rustam and Paikuli. The captured inscriptions were often carved on commissioned temples, civic buildings and statues to record battles won, titles acquired or the lineage of kings. Scholars have used the squeezes to chronicle the reigns of local rulers and discover the nature of otherwise unidentifiable structures. More recently, scholars have used microscopic traces of pigments retained from the original surface to provide a unique and exceptional journal of the color and decoration used at the time of the monument’s creation.

“These digital images offer extraordinary access to inscriptions from the cradle of civilization,” said Alex Nagel, assistant curator of Near East art. “By making them available to scholars and enthusiasts worldwide, we’re ensuring that new discoveries can come from these remarkable artifacts.”

The archives hold almost 400 paper squeezes that belong to its larger collection of Ernst Herzfeld papers.

In 2010, the archives received a grant from the Smithsonian’s Collections Care and Preservation Fund to aid in the preservation of the squeezes. The Archives, in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute, created a digital version of each squeeze using a new imaging technique called Reflectance Transformation Imaging. RTI allows users to manipulate the image and enhance a squeeze’s readability, while protecting the fragile original objects from further damage.

For more information on the squeeze digitization project, the Herzfeld papers, and the process of making squeezes, visit www.asia.si.edu/research/squeezeproject/.

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The Smithsonian Research Online program recently surpassed the mark of 10,000 publications in the Digital Repository. This collection of digital publications by Smithsonian staff represents a broad review of research done by researchers at the Institution. Each year the program collects information on nearly 2000 publications by Institution researchers many of whom later contribute their article’s corresponding digital reprint. This milestone was achieved when the paper by Ben Hirsch and Jesus Maldonado, “Familiarity breeds progeny: sociality increases reproductive success in adult male ring-tailed coatis (Nasua nasua)”was deposited into the collection.

The SRO consists of two basic components: a list of publications authored by Smithsonian researchers and affiliates, and a corresponding digital repository which contains the actual article or chapter in electronic form. The data which SRO collects is not only used by Institution administrators for research assessment purposes, but is also re-used by webmasters and other Smithsonian offices for reports, presentations and other public information services.

Image right: An illustration from the scientific paper: “New materials of Masiakasaurus knopfleri Sampson, Carrano, and Forster, 2001, and implications for the morphology of the Noasauridae (Theropoda: Ceratosauria.”

These electronic versions of peer-reviewed, scholarly journal articles are therefore made much more widely available to the worldwide research community thanks to indexing and search capabilities provided by the Repository in conjunction with scientific web portals. In addition to finding specific articles authored by Smithsonian scholars, the Digital Repository indexes the full text of each publication, thereby allowing search engines to retrieve these publications based on technical or geographic terms which may not appear in the title of the publication.

Shortly after adding the Hirsch and Maldonado paper, the Repository then added a paper by National Museum of Natural History Paleontologist Matthew Carrano, “New materials of Masiakasaurus knopfleri Sampson, Carrano, and Forster, 2001, and implications for the morphology of the Noasauridae (Theropoda: Ceratosauria).” Part of Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology, the addition of this item to the Repository ensures that Smithsonian Scholarly Press publications are archived in digital form for long-term public access.–Alvin Hutchinson, Smithsonian Institution Libraries

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Image right: Besides tin containers, the shipwreck contained boxwood boxes with medicinal substances. (Image: SA FI a7-Soprintendenza Toscana)

The pills were found aboard the shipwreck, which was first located in 1974, inside a tin container. Other medical implements also were found aboard the ship including a surgical hook, a mortar, a copper bleeding cup and a tin pitcher. The implements were all located close together, leading researchers to believe they were originally packed in a chest belonging to a physician.

Image left: A medicinal chest aboard the ship contained 136 phials with herbs possibly for the preparation of medicines. (SA FI 31442 Soprintendenza Toscana)

Alain Touwaide, historian of sciences in the Department of Botany at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and scientific director of the Institute for Preservation of Medical Traditions, collaborated in the discovery. In 2004, he received fragments of the pills from the Italian Department of Antiquities. DNA sequencing was done by Robert Fleischer, head of the genetics program at the Natural History Museum.

The identification of the plant components in the Roman pills is a first,” Touwaide says. “The pills are the only know archaeological remains of ancient medicines, and their analysis is the first ever performed.”

Image right: The Gulf of Baratti in Italy

References to all of the components identified in the medicines can be found in ancient medical texts. Not only does this new discovery validate these ancient texts, but it opens promising avenues for new scientific research and innovative thinking in drug discovery.

A library of ancient medicinal texts is maintained by the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions, which specializes in recovering the medical heritage of the ancient Mediterranean world.

More information about this project can be found on the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions Web site at http://medicaltraditions.org/

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