The Departments of Physics and History and Archaeology at UWI, Mona hosts a public lecture entitled, "Application of XRF for the preservation of cultural heritage and artifacts". The Lecture takes place on Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 4:30 pm at Physics Lecture Room B, UWI, Mona. Dr. Andreas Karydas, Expert, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will deliver the Lecture.
 
The Lecture will highlight how the successful conservation of ancient objects relies to a large extend on the knowledge of a) the physical and chemical nature of the constituent materials and b) the extent of their transformation through time and under the influence of environmental or burial conditions. To this end, continuous advances in analytical methods and instrumentation have enabled conservators and archaeologists jointly with scientists to address, in a systematic and thorough way, questions in materials characterization, illuminating archaeological or conservation problems and aiding the study of the deterioration processes of ancient materials.
 
A particularly attractive aspect of modern analytical technology is mobility. Research efforts over the past few years have resulted in compact, mobile instruments that can be transported and operated beyond the standard scientific laboratory environment, namely in the conservation laboratory, in the museum or even at the archaeological/historical site, offering unique opportunities for the study of valuable objects at their location. An additional issue of high importance is that such mobile analytical techniques enable also analysis to be carried out directly on the objects thereby eliminating the need for sampling. And this can be done in a practically non-invasive manner

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