ICACH elaborated multispectral methods using technical photography in order to reveal possible hidden watermarks and to identify the variability and the elemental composition of different inks used by the dragoman Hadjigiorgakis Kornesios at late 19th century Cyprus during the Ottoman rule.

Moreover the diary belongs to a private collection and its digitisation offers a documentation surrogate for digital preservation  that can be used for research and analysis by a broad spectrum of interest groups.

The methods that are the following:

•  Visible (VIS) medium format photography for the documentation.
• Infrared (IR) photography for the identification of inks used.
• IR transmitted for revealing hidden watermarks.
• Infrared False color a combination of infrared and visible photography for the variability of inks that looks the same but their elemental composition is differrent, a phenomenon called “metamerism”.
• Ultraviolet (UV) photography in order to identify fluorescent inks or to access and identify coating on paper if its used.

Our findings includes certain hidden watermarks on some of the pages of the old diary where we can assume the provenance of the paper imported to Cyprus. Moreover we have diagnosed the current condition of of he paper as well as the primary elemental composition of the inks used. This will help to the proper
conservation of the diary since it provides essential information to the restorer.

Multispectral photography on the Hadjigeorgakis Kornesios old Diary by ICACH is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.