Methods & Equipment
The study of written artefacts requires the availability of the appropriate analytical equipment to meet the needs from on-field to in situ measurements. For this purpose, this section includes the mobile equipment for on-field measurements, the high performance stationary devices at Universität Hamburg (DESY, MIN Faculty, and TUHH), as well as the instrumentation that can be installed in the Container Lab and sent abroad for in situ measurements with portable equipment. Since the selection of the suitable analytical equipment is crucial to answer the research questions posed and comply with the physicochemical characteristics of the objects being studied, the fundamentals of the applied analytical methods are provided as well in this section. In addition, the instrument specifications are given along with useful information regarding the application aims and requirements of each device (e.g., invasive vs. non-invasive analysis). The categorization of "Methods and equipment" into ten subentries is intented to follow the principle of the analytical technique (e.g., vibrational spectroscopies) or the purpose of its application (e.g., imaging). Since our analytical equipment is steadily being updated, this Guide should be viewed as a living organism, to which new devices and analytical approaches are constantly being added.