Atoms in preserving the past

Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci needs no introduction. He was a man apart.

- J. Devaprakash

Perhaps, he was Da Vinci was a virtuoso in paintings, science, engineering, writing, sculpture, architecture and in numerous other fields. Two of his paintings Last Supper (created during 1503-19) and Mona Lisa (created during 1595-98) still top the list of much-viewed paintings in the world. While the former is worth 450 million US dollars, the latter is valued as 1 billion US dollars. To add to his credit, he had also authored several more art works that became all-time wonders among art lovers across the globe.

But how such several centuries-old paintings and cultural heritage are conserved as they get withered with time or corroded or degraded owing to biological attack? Much known for electricity generation, nuclear technology helps keep the arts artefacts and manuscripts intact for ages.

"Preserving cultural heritage using nuclear technology helps us to understand and respect the history, knowledge and experience of the countries as well as contributes to the socioeconomic benefits," according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Conventionally, two methods, chemical and physical, were widely used to preserve the arts and artefacts.

Nonetheless, owing to the drawbacks in these methods while chemical method has a strong possibility of leaving unwanted substances on the object, the physical method can scathe the object itself - art conservators have turned to nuclear radiation technology to safeguard the objects of cultural importance from degradation.