Cultural Heritage and Forensic Science*
Special session at PittCon, in addition to other forensic offerings
I’m at PittCon this week, which is a large international laboratory science meeting, largely analytical chemistry but really all things “lab.” I say “large” but it used to be huge, like beyond belief. When I worked in the instrumentation game in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were only about 4 convention centers in the U.S. where they could hold it, it was so large. There would be live instrumentation, like scanning electron microscopes, running samples for interested customers on the show floor. Think: SEMs shipped, set up, and running for a week-long show! And that was only a part of that conference. Things are smaller now, thanks to the pandemic, but the show floor is still impressive.
Anyway, it’s fun to be back at a severely geeky, deeply scientific conference that I haven’t been at for a long time.
Special session on the crossroads of cultural heritage and forensic science*
Cultural heritage chemists utilize analytical techniques and an investigative mindset in their pursuit to uncover the hidden secrets of artworks and artifacts that would be immediately recognizable to their allied professionals in forensic scientists. This symposium highlights the scientific overlap that exist between art analyses and crime scene investigations.
The session combines presentations from museum conservation scientists and forensic researchers that share methods and perspectives between the two disciplines. The session is organized by Gregory Smith of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, who was also Guest Editor of a Special Issue of Forensic Science International: Synergy on the same topic (disclosure: I’m Editor in Chief of that journal and it’s Open Access, so the articles are free to download). The intersection between two disciplines is fascinating to me because they are so similar on many levels:
The worlds of art fraud and cultural heritage chemistry are very similar to forensic science, easy signature comparisons notwithstanding. The mindset is the same, the evidence just as precious and irreplaceable, and many methods are identical: a museum conservation laboratory looks much like a forensic laboratory (Fig. 4). Conservation scientists use the same variety of microscopic, spectroscopic, chromatographic, and other scientific techniques and instruments as forensic scientists do to examine objects. Just as with forensic science, non-destructive techniques are preferred. When sampling must take place, microscopic fragments are removed from the object and their provenance on the object is recorded just like any crime scene. The range of materials to be studied is vast, much like forensic science: textiles, metals, wood, biological materials, pigments, papers, inks, leather, and on and on.
Methods aside, the mindset is wonderfully similar, as noted in Michelle Miranda’s opening talk today, "The Trace in the Technique: Observation in Art Connoisseurship and Forensic Science:
The forensic scientist and the art connoisseur evaluate the whole—a crime scene or work of art, respectively—and draw meaning from the often-overlooked details, or traces, contained therein. Such observations not only facilitate identifications and comparisons, but also guide the method of asking questions, generating hypotheses, and reasoning through analytical approaches to problem-solving. ...First, an overview of the historical evolution of scientific approaches to art connoisseurship is presented, establishing connections to crime scene investigation and reconstruction within the forensic science framework. This presentation then explores ways of looking and seeing by shifting from historical approaches that focused on developing a practiced eye to modern methods used in forensic science and technical art history. Utilizing technical aids such as digital imaging (e.g. infrared reflectography), alternate light sources (luminescence), and microscopy (e.g. PLM), the laboratory scientist looks beyond the surface to identify and compare objects and traces while evaluating new and existing lines of inquiry. After addressing the means by which the scientist shifts from observation to interpretation through inferential reasoning, this presentation concludes by reinforcing the importance of observation and trace detection through the development and continuous refinement of the scientist’s practiced eye.
Presentations then go on to examine and discuss topics as interesting and diverse as Nazca tunic fabrics, fingerprints, funerary portraits, and even a pardon written by Abraham Lincoln (kinda).
All sciences learn from each other. Forensic science* should be no different and cross-pollination like this gives me hope.
Check out the articles, check out the forensic abstracts at PittCon.