Cooper Book p.
Modern day conservators would be horrified at treatments that parchments were subjected to in former times, particularly during 1820 – 50, which in some cases have permanently damaged the documents.275 Parchment is particularly susceptible to mould in conditions of high humidity, as well as accelerated gelatinization, but some mild wash regimes are employed. Aqueous washing of parchment presents difficulties, because parchment is damaged if saturated by water and then air dried, and there is always the danger of some solutes in the ink running;276 but a humid atmosphere with dilute anhydrous ammonia gas, or hydrogen peroxide vapour (synthesized 1811) with anhydrous ammonia has long been known as treatment employed by conservators as a fixative for the ink (reducing the acidity, retarding ink corrosion), with mild bleaching properties on the substrate to reduce yellowing and staining, as well as arresting fungal or microbial rot. Hydrogen peroxide with ammonia was still being used in the twentieth century to brighten yellowed and foxed ‘white parchment’, for example the Juliana Anicia Codex, a ‘white parchment’ codex produced around AD 512.277 Indeed, some folios in that codex have been selectively brightened using the peroxide-ammonia method.278 Since Dr Cooper is promoting the belief that there are very significant difference in colour between the Leipzig leaves and the British Library leaves (in reality there is not) one would at least expect him to have investigated the possibility of different treatments applied to the leaves as conservation practices rather than rushing to the explanation that the British Library leaves have been deliberately darkened in order to deceive.
275 The aforementioned Cardinal Mai was famous – or infamous – for the use of such chemicals especially on palimpsests, resulting in near destruction of some manuscripts. One rather famous conservation and cleaning attempt in the 1830s by the British Museum on a copy of the Magna Carta rendered it illegible.
276 The black precipitate formed in situ as the ink oxidizes has poor solubility, but because the ink when applied is fairly colourless, containing no pigment, some formulations of iron-gall ink have a small amount of dye added so that the ink is visible when applied; and these dye additives can be soluble.
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NOTE THIS -- COMPARE TO OUR GAL
... Dr Ekkehard Henschke, Director of Leipzig University Library 1992- 2005, who was a member of the Codex Sinaiticus Project, and intimately familiar with the Leipzig leaves and the British Library leaves, gives a very candid assessment of the true state of the Leipzig leaves in 2006-7: [T]he varying hot, cold and humid conditions in Leipzig produced a lot of damage...[T]his part of the Codex had suffered badly from humidity...The leaves owned by the British Library are in a better state.274
