| ABOUT RESTORATION PROCESS | ||
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The restoration process of the documents for the exhibition was carried out by "Estudi B2" in Barcelona and "Restauració i Conservació Dolors Velasco" in Girona. The objective was to recover the largest number possible of documents from the insides of the covers of the notarial protocols and, evidently, maintain them in the best possible conditions without doing harm either to the Hebrew documents or to the books. This process was delicate and difficult due to the conditions that the documents were in. They were stuck to one another and damaged by insects, humidity and were quite dirty from the dust and sand they had accumulated over the years. The criteria for carrying out the work was to use the most innocuous, reversible and highest quality products possible for conservation. The integrity of the documents and the writing on them were given the highest importance, bearing in mind that it is important to be able to read them clearly when they are being studied. |
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The steps that were followed |
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The first operations were to separate the stitching and the threads; then, soften the outer parchment of the book covers so as to be able to separate the padding that is made up of various layers of fragments of paper and parchment, which are stuck together with adhesive. Once the padding was removed, the layers it was made up of were separated. To do so, the pieces of stuck-together paper were placed in distilled water to soften the adhesive that they were joined with and to separate the pieces from one another. They were placed in a flexible, protective support (grille with remay) and the surface was cleaned of stains and remains of adhesive by placing them together in the water. Before separating the sheets of paper, the solubility of the ink was tested. This separation process by immersion is the most delicate part and must be done very carefully, by hand, and using a scalpel, folding press, tweezers and other tools. The length of the immersion must be as short as possible to avoid risks to the physical condition of the paper, especially to the most fragile or most greatly damaged documents. The next step is to dry the fragments at room temperature and perform a cleaning of the remains of adhesive once they are dry. Cellulose material in the form of gel was applied to soften the adhesive that was then carefully removed by using the scalpel and folding press. Afterwards, what is called "reaprest" was performed using cellulose-based adhesive to give consistency to the material; then, they were gently pressed in the folding press. After a minimal reconstruction was done on some of the sheets (for which it was thought necessary, because of their physical state), they were protected by placing them individually in Melinex 400 (75 micres) transparent covers. Finally, the documents were labelled with pH neutral paper without adhesive. |
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