When researchers in Graz announced in early summer 2023 that they had found a fragment of a 2,300-year-old codex, it was a scoop – it would be by far the world’s oldest fragment of a bound book. But is the ‘Graz Mummy Book’ really one? The Artefact Lab at the CSMC aims to find the answer.

Power cuts, extreme temperatures, the onset of the monsoon – on its first trip, the UWA Container Lab is exposed to adverse conditions. Impressions from Puducherry, India, where chemist Marina Creydt wants to determine the production methods and provenance of historical palm-leaf manuscripts.

For the first time, the many years of experience of our laboratory team in analysing written artefacts are bundled in one place. The Artefact Profiling Guide is a unique resource for researchers in the humanities who want to harness the potential of cutting-edge analytical methods for their work.