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UID:UW-Physics-Event-8964
DTSTART:20241206T160000Z
DTEND:20241206T180000Z
DTSTAMP:20260413T223259Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241017T192731Z
LOCATION:Sterling Hall\, Room B343
SUMMARY:X-Ray Fluorescence Imaging of Early Print\, Preliminary Exam\,
  Minhal Gardezi\, Physics PhD Graduate Student
DESCRIPTION:Print is one of humanity’s most impactful technologies\,
  yet much of its origins remain unclear\, particularly surrounding the
  earliest instances of moveable metal type print. While there is docum
 entation of Korean printers using metal type as early as 1234\, none o
 f the metal types used for these earliest prints have been preserved a
 nd their metal compositions remain unknown. Even fewer technical detai
 ls are known about the first European metal type press invented by Joh
 annes Gutenberg in the mid 15th century\, despite its major role in la
 unching the Renaissance period in Europe by revolutionizing Western in
 formation dissemination. Working in collaboration with an interdiscipl
 inary team of scholars\, technical personnel\, and scientists\, my wor
 k aims to fill in the gaps in knowledge surrounding early print techno
 logy through X-ray fluorescence (XRF) imaging of early printed documen
 ts. XRF scans of around 50 early print specimens from across Korea and
  Europe (including an early 15th century bound Korean folio and fragme
 nts of an original 42-line Gutenberg Bible) as well as 7 pre-Gutenberg
  Arabic block prints revealed clear metal content only in the document
 s printed using metal type. Through collaboration with print scholars\
 , I obtained and produced controlled test prints made using metal type
 s with known alloys and nonmetal inks. XRF scans of these test prints 
 confirmed the leaching of metals from the types into the paper. Here I
  will present my findings and propose XRF imaging as a compelling rese
 arch technique for ascertaining whether a historical document was prin
 ted using metal type and\, if so\, determining the metal type alloy. M
 y work adds valuable information to scholarly studies comparing early 
 print technologies that aims to determine whether print may have arriv
 ed in Europe from Asia.
URL:https://www.physics.wisc.edu/events/?id=8964
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