New Container Lab Arrives in Hamburg

19 May 2022

If the written artefacts can't come to the lab, you need a lab that can come to the written artefacts. This week, the Cluster’s brand-new Container Lab has been delivered to Science City Bahrenfeld. In mid-June, two containers will be presented at the Open Day.

It’s been a long time coming: after years of planning and several delays due to disturbances with the global supply chain, the Cluster’s brand-new Container Lab has finally been delivered to Hamburg. They are now being kept at Science City Bahrenfeld, were the commissioning will take place in due course.

The Container Lab fills the gap between the existing two components of CSMC’s laboratory system: the high-performance stationary lab and the Mobile Lab. With the help of the Container Lab, scientists can precisely analyse valuable manuscripts that cannot be brought to stationary laboratories – for example, because of their fragility or for political reasons – anywhere in the world. This autumn, the Container Lab will go on its first mission to Pondicherry, India. In the frame of the project ‘Palm-Leaf Manuscript Profiling Initiative (PLMPI)’, CSMC researchers will employ it to determine the origin of numerous Tamil palm-leaf manuscripts (for more information about the purpose of the mission, read the full interview with project-leader Giovanni Ciotti).

Before they go to India, the containers are on the road in Hamburg this summer. At the Open Day on 10 and 11 June, two containers can be visited at Warburgstraße 26. Members of the Research Field ‘Artefact Profiling’ will offer guided tours and explain the manifold functions and potential applications of the Container Lab.