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Welcome
Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
A Taphophilia Thank You...
Taphophilia (dot) Com would not be possible without the knowledge, experience and talent of DarkestWeb. From its conception and early development, DarkestWeb was faced with many challenges; from inspiring and motivating, to providing guidance and direction. The continued dedication and support has produced results greater than ever expected, and for this, I owe a huge debt of gratitude.
Announcements
Graveyards of Chicago:
The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries
By Matt Hucke And Ursula Bielski. Discover a Chicago That Exists Just Beneath the Surface - About Six Feet Under! Take a tour of Chicago's permanent residents! Please visit the Lake Claremont Press website to purchase your copy of Graveyards of Chicago today!
Green-Wood Cemetery Arcadia Publishing announces the release of Alexandra Mosca's historic account of one of New York's most famous cemeteries. Aracdia Publishing's Images of America series has an extensive catalog of many cemetery publications! Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Green-Wood Cemetery and to browse other available titles!
Men of Mortuaries Calendar
To purchase your 2008 calendar, learn more about the KAMMCARES Foundation, or to be featured in the 2009 calendar, please visit Men of Mortuaries.
Epitaphs: The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers By Cemetery Lovers
For information regarding subscriptions, single issues, submission guidelines, deadlines, classifieds or advertising for future issues, please visit The Cemetery Club.
Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints, Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture
with photography by John Bower and foreword by Claude Cookman is now
available. Please visit
Studio Indiana for more information.
West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
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Portable Fiber Laser Cleans Ancient Tomb |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Saturday, 19 August 2006 |
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Using photonics to solve problems of the real world
by Nadya Anscombe
The conservation of an Egyptian tomb is a delicate, painstaking process. Dirt must be removed without damaging the fragile surfaces of the walls. In some cases, the grime is attached so firmly to the surface that even conventional hand-cleaning using chemical or mechanical methods is unsuitable.
Application of water or solvents can lead to further penetration of the soot particles into the surface, and the deteriorated surface may be too fragile for mechanical cleaning.
This is where laser technology comes in. A group of German conservators is using an ytterbium fiber laser to conserve the 3300-year-old tomb of Neferhotep, a senior Egyptian scribe who served in the temple of the god Amun.
“This is the first time a laser has been used for this application,” said conservator Christina Verbeek of Neferhotep eV in Cologne. Verbeek and her colleagues Susanne Brinkmann and Birte Graue are using a portable laser system from Clean Lasersysteme GmbH of Herzogenrath, Germany.
“It is particularly useful on the white background, where soot and dirt are firmly attached to the surface,” Verbeek noted. “Laser-cleaning these areas is particularly successful because it is a contactless process, and the lime and gypsum surfaces have a resistance to laser light because of their higher reflectivity of the laser light compared with the soot.”
“Cleaning art monuments with laser light is a challenge in many ways,” said Michael Panzner, a physicist at the Fraunhofer Institut für Werkstoff- und Strahltechnik in Dresden, Germany, who is supporting the effort. “Because they are unique, they must on no account be damaged. In addition to this, every subsurface — be it plaster, mortar or stone — has specific physical properties and reacts to the laser light differently.”
The art is to adjust the power density, the repetition rate and the velocity of the laser beam across the surface so that the dirt is removed while the paint and the subsurface are conserved.
The laser unit used by the conservators is worn as a backpack and has a maximum power of 20 W, a pulse duration of approximately 100 ns and a repetition rate that is adjustable from 20 to 60 kHz. Compared with other laser systems used for cleaning, the ytterbium fiber one has several advantages: It is low-cost, compact, battery-operated and lightweight, and it features a handset that is fiber-coupled to the laser head, enabling the beam to be easily moved and focused.
The conservators started by treating test areas on the wall of the burial chamber with laser parameters that applied only a very low power density and number of laser pulses per area to the surface. After each trial run, the result was examined through a microscope. Then they gradually modified the parameters until the ideal settings for damage-free cleaning had been found.
Although cleaning with a laser is still time-consuming, the researchers found it much faster than traditional methods in some circumstances. The ability to ablate very thin layers was also an advantage. However, compared with traditional chemical or mechanical methods, it is more expensive, and it was found to discolor some pigments in advance trials on test pieces in the laboratory.
The team is continuing its evaluation of the laser system for this application and is excited about using the technology in the conservation of such an ancient tomb.
“If you know what the laser can do and what its strengths and weaknesses are, it is an excellent supplement to the usual mechanical and chemical conservation methods,” Verbeek said.
http://www.photonics.com/content/spectra/2006/August/applications/83742.aspx |
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Taphophilia Facts
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Kentucky is home to one Presidential gravesite, Zachary Taylor.
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Quote Repository
“Here was still another consequence of the mind's inability, when it ponders death, to picture something other than life.” Marcel ProustFrom Albertine
Grave Epigrams
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And now shall thy dust return to the earth
Thy spirit to God who gave it.
Yet affection shall tenderly cherish thy worth
And memory deeply engrave it. |
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Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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