Louvre

Following the industrial revolution and the modernization of chemistry, purple became one of the most popular colors in the palettes of late 19th- to 20th-century painters. Among them, Robert Delaunay (1885-1941) was one of the key artists of the avant-garde movement in France in the early 20th century. Although widely used in modern and contemporary paintings, inorganic purple pigments of the cobalt phosphate and cobalt arsenate families have been little studied chemically until now. The diversity of emerging chemical syntheses resulted in a wide range of products, characterized by a high diversity of hues, function of their respective composition, and crystal structures. The present work combines structural and optical analyses to probe the purple pigments used by Delaunay. Reference materials synthesized in the laboratory were characterized via synchrotron radiation-based high-angular-resolution X-ray powder diffraction and UV-vis-NIR spectroscopy. Structure-color relationships were established for the first time for several inorganic compounds of the Co-P/As family. Two of Robert Delaunay's earliest masterpieces conserved at the Centre Pompidou in Paris were probed in situ via X-ray powder diffraction in imaging mode and fiber optic UV-vis-NIR reflectance spectroscopy. The results highlight the decisive effect of their structural chemistry on the palettes of modern and contemporary painters.

L’île de Bahreïn, située près de la côte ouest du golfe Persique, a toujours été un lieu carrefour de populations et de marchandises, par sa position privilégiée entre l’Arabie, l’Iran, et sa proximité avec le sous-continent indien. D’abord lieu emblématique de la culture de Dilmun à l’âge du Bronze, elle a ensuite été influencée par le monde hellénistique, puis romain, lors de la période de Tylos (300 av.-300 ap. J.-C.). La nécropole Tylos d’Abu Saiba, après avoir été partiellement fouillée...

International audience

<p>The twenty-fourth Current Research in Egyptology conference was held at the University of Liverpool between 2–6 September 2024, and organised by researchers across five UK universities. This important event welcomed almost 200 participants from around the globe, with a full programme of 115 paper presentations alongside 17 poster presentations, highlighting recent research and results by early career researchers in Egyptology and related fields. The present volume gathers 23 selected papers from the conference, reflecting the breadth of new work, methods, and perspectives presented at the meeting. Individual papers include discussion of material culture, society, religion, reception studies, findings from archaeological excavations, and methodological issues, bringing together a wide range of recent research in Predynastic, Pharaonic, and Graeco-Roman Egyptology.</p>

This study investigates the alteration processes affecting the smalt pigment in historical artworks through a combination of analytical techniques including X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure (XANES) spectroscopy at the potassium (K) and cobalt (Co) K-edges, coupled with scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX) and micro X-ray fluorescence elemental mapping (µ-XRF). Laboratory mock-up samples prepared with different oil binding media were artificially aged, revealing varying rates of smalt degradation. µ-XANES analyses at the K K-edge provided grain-scale insights into smalt alteration, highlighting the influence of binding media composition on degradation kinetics. Crossed clustering data analysis over K µ-XANES acquired on both model samples and historical cross-sections corroborated findings and identified distinct spectral signatures associated with different stages of smalt degradation. Furthermore, identification of potential transformation products such as potassium alum in historical samples emphasized the dynamic nature of pigment alteration processes.

Traditional radiocarbon dating and bomb-pulse dating are essential tools to establish the archaeological relevance or medico-legal significance of human skeletal remains.Bomb-pulse dating enables assessment of an individual's years of birth and death.Bomb-pulse dating helps to narrow down the pool of candidates for identification.Radiocarbon analysis provides mutual benefits for archaeologists, forensic anthropologists, and the criminal justice system.

This study investigates the application of steganography for enhancing network security by detecting and promptly eliminating malicious packets to prevent flooding and consequent denial of service attacks while also identifying malicious equipment. The paper discusses foundational concepts such as the prisoner’s dilemma, covert channels, qualitative metrics, and existing steganography techniques in computer communications. An architecture was developed to assess the effectiveness of this solution, and experiments were conducted, with their results presented. This contribution leverages established steganographic principles and seamlessly integrates with widely adopted IPsec protocols, offering a solution to improve covert communication within computer networks.

Fonds Bohumil Holas, bobine 16mm E203097 « Haute-Volta », 1971©Andrès_Diaz_2024.The audiovisual collection of the Musée du quai Branly media library preserves the amateur films of Bohumil Holas (1909–1979), the former director of the Abidjan Museum (Ivory Coast). These unique reels were shown to the public for the first time at the Jean Rouch International Festival of 2023. Their screening raised the question of private film stocks in museum collections: what heritage value should be assigne...