Ink, wax, and the non-destructive analysis of written artefacts: Dr Olivier Bonnerot joins TabulaRasa in Naples
From 20 to 24 April 2026, Dr Olivier Bonnerot of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at Hamburg University will be in Naples to conduct non-destructive analyses of the ink writing on Roman wax tablets at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (MANN), in the frame of a research cooperation between the CSMC and the TabulaRasa project.
We are delighted to announce that in this framework Dr Bonnerot will give a public talk entitled: “The CSMC Mobile Lab and the non-destructive analysis of written artefacts: insights into inks and pigments on ancient papyri”
The talk will take place on Monday, 20 April 2026, at 4:15 PM, at the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’, Palazzo Corigliano, Antisala degli Specchi (4th floor), Piazza San Domenico Maggiore 12, 80134 Naples.
The hybrid event, organized as part of the activities of the Centro per lo studio e l’edizione dei testi (CESET) at ‘L’Orientale’, will be followed by a discussion chaired by Dr Silvia Pizzimenti, RTD-A in analytical chemistry for the environment and cultural heritage at the University of Naples ‘Federico II’.
Admission is free and everyone is welcome! For those unable to attend in person, the talk will be streamed via Zoom at the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85933478309
We look forward to welcoming Olivier to Naples and to this exciting collaboration!
About the talk: The Mobile Lab of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at the University of Hamburg was established with a clear ambition: to bring high-end scientific instrumentation directly to the written artefacts, rather than exposing fragile and irreplaceable objects to the risks of transportation. In this talk, we will present the Mobile Lab and the range of analytical techniques it offers, including multispectral and hyperspectral imaging, X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, Raman and FTIR spectroscopies and VIS-NIR spectrophotometry, among others. We will discuss the questions these methods can address, from the identification and classification of writing materials to provenance studies, authentication, and the recovery of damaged or hidden text. These possibilities will be illustrated with results from our ongoing research, with a special focus on inks and pigments in ancient papyri.
About the speaker: Olivier Bonnerot trained as an engineer in France, completing a classe préparatoire in Lyon before graduating from Chimie ParisTech (2011) with both a Master of Engineering in chemistry and an MSc in analytical chemistry. Through internships at the C2RMF (Centre de recherche et de restauration des Musées de France, Musée du Louvre), the Science Department of the British Museum, and the CRCC (Centre de Recherche sur la Conservation des Collections, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle), he discovered his vocation in archaeometry (the application of natural sciences to archaeology).
He went on to complete a PhD at the University of Cyprus (2016) on the analysis of materials from early Byzantine Cypriot mosaics, before joining the BAM (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung) in Berlin, as part of the project ‘Material-Scientific Methods for Reconstructing the History of Manuscripts’ in the collaboration with the CSMC (Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures) from the University of Hamburg. In 2019, he became a member of the Cluster of Excellence ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’ (UWA), contributing to the long-term project ‘History of Writing: Black Inks and Writing Surfaces’. In 2022, he became Principal Investigator of the project “From carbon to iron: Evolution of Greek inks from Hellenistic times to Late Antiquity”. He is currently co-leader of the project group “Writing in Colours” and Principal Investigator of a project on written artefacts from the Roman army at the CSMC.
View/download the poster here: https://tabularasa.hypotheses.org/files/2026/03/Poster_Bonnerot_web.pdf
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OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Michele Cammarosano (March 24, 2026). Ink, wax, and the non-destructive analysis of written artefacts: Dr Olivier Bonnerot joins TabulaRasa in Naples. TabulaRasa. Retrieved August 17, 2026 from https://tabularasa.hypotheses.org/4763
