Beta
2799

The Conservation of an Ottoman Egyptian Percussion Muzzleloader

Article

Last updated: 03 Jan 2025

Subjects

-

Tags

Restoration

Abstract

This study discusses the analysis and conservation of an Ottoman muzzleloader from the museum of the Faculty of Applied Arts, Helwan University (fig 1). It is a composite material which includes a wooden handle/stock embellished with silver pierced openwork fixed to the wood with silver nails and an incised silver butt-plate decorated with niello. The barrel is fluted and decorated with gilded floral patterns, a Quranic verse and a date 1271A.H. During cleaning the original Ottoman Egyptian silver hallmarks were recovered including an official standard for the purity of silver 80% and a monogram signature (tughra) of the reigning ruler. Non-destructive analyses of metal parts were performed using a portable X-ray Fluorescence while the silver and iron corrosion products were analyzed using X-ray diffraction. Further analyses of the silver was made possible by analyzing a detached silver nail using environmental ESEM+ EDS. FTIR was used to verify the presence of adhesives used for the application of gilding onto the steel barrel. The conservation was performed without disassembling the muzzleloader using minimum possible intervention due to the composite nature of the firearm.

DOI

10.21608/jguaa.2000.2799

Authors

First Name

Mai

Last Name

Rifai

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Conservation Department, Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University

Email

-

City

Egypt

Orcid

-

Volume

12

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

516

Issue Date

2011-12-01

Receive Date

2017-05-03

Publish Date

2011-12-01

Page Start

136

Page End

153

Print ISSN

2536-9822

Online ISSN

2536-9830

Link

https://jguaa.journals.ekb.eg/article_2799.html

Detail API

https://jguaa.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=2799

Order

13

Type

المقالة الأصلية

Type Code

413

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

مجلة الإتحاد العام للآثاريين العرب

Publication Link

https://jguaa.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

The Conservation of an Ottoman Egyptian Percussion Muzzleloader

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023