LAVIER Catherine

This study takes place within the framework of an ambitious restoration project of the two Japanese lodges situated at Boulogne-Billancourt, in France. The philanthropist banker Albert Kahn builds a set of gardens during the 19 th century with a Japanese "village". Manhandled by the time, restorations were decided with, in parallel, an exhaustive archaeological investigation of these buildings. The AKAHN project: "Albert Kahn: archaeology of a Japanese Heritage" began in 2015. Exploratory analysis were made to direct a part of the work and in particular to find the original colors. The measurements were realized according to non-destructive methods and techniques mainly in situ. The present results are not complete and are in the continuation especially for the wood. They concern the dendrometrical studies on both houses and the characterization of their polychromies. They also participate in the implementation of a database on Asian woods in France: in the 19 th century in Europe, during the period named " Japanism " , numerous buildings seem to contain same kind of woods.

As part of a larger project promoting the development of historical dendrochronology in the Iberian Peninsula, ship-timbers from the Arade 1 wreck (mostly planking and framing elements), stored at the DANS/IGESPAR in Lisbon, were examined. Of these, 52 samples were identified as deciduous oak (Quercus subg. quercus) and two as chestnut (Castanea sativa). Of 24 timbers selected for dendrochronological research, 23 could be dated, placing the origin of the wood in western France and the felling of trees between AD 1579 and 1583. Their homogeneity suggests they are part of the original construction, which probably took place shortly after AD 1583.

Les trouvailles issues des dragages, puis les fouilles
subaquatiques menées par L. Bonnamour dans les
années 1980, avaient montré l’existence de sites
structurés et bien conservés, datés de la fin de l’âge du
Bronze, dans le lit mineur de la Saône. Les recherches
effectuées récemment dans d’autres cours d’eau du
territoire et la reprise de documents inédits ont mis
en évidence l’existence de vestiges comparables
dans l’Hérault (Agde, Hérault), la Boutonne (Torxé,
Charente-Maritime) ou la Loire (Avrilly, Allier). Elles ont
livré des structures variées (aménagement de berge,
habitat, dépôts d’objets métalliques), qui se rattachent
à différentes phases de la Protohistoire. Cet article a
pour objectif d’attirer l’attention de la communauté
scientifique et des gestionnaires du patrimoine sur
l’existence d’un riche potentiel, dont la reconnaissance
et l’inventaire restent encore largement à faire. Ces
sites ont, par ailleurs, pour point commun d’être
fragilisés et menacés de destruction par le pillage,
l’érosion fluviale et les travaux d’aménagement.

The Atacama region has the highest concentration on the planet of hallucinogenic paraphernalia from prehistoric cemeteries. These artifacts have been studied since the late 19th century, primarily from the perspective of stylistic classification, which has been used to infer their temporal assignation. In more recent times, the plant species inhaled and the wood used to manufacture the different implements have been analyzed with archeometric resources. However, direct chronological dating of the snuff trays has not been addressed until now, in the context of an interdisciplinary study conducted in San Pedro de Atacama on the psychotropic paraphernalia collection of the Instituto de Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Museo R.P. Gustavo Le Paige S.J. (IIAM), part of the Universidad Católica del Norte. In this study, samples were extracted from nine snuff trays for radiocarbon dating and to develop a suitable procedure and protocol for sample extraction and handling of wooden archeological pieces. This article reports on the results of these activities and comments on their scope, from stylistic and chronological perspectives.

The interactions between historic wooden archival boxes, their content and the indoor environment were studied. The aim of the project was to investigate whether the volatile organic compounds (VOC) emitted by the boxes can impact the stability of the cellulosic documents and metallic artefacts they contain. Through dendrochronology analyses 288 wooden boxes from city and regional archives as well as from the French National Archives were identified as dating from the XIVth to the XXth centuries. The boxes were shown to be not airtight and to emit moderate concentrations of VOC. Regardless of their age, the boxes do not seem to represent a particular risk for cellulosic materials and metallic artefacts.

Depuis le Moyen Âge, entre La Charité-sur-Loire et La Chapelle-Montlinard, deux ponts franchissent les deux chenaux séparés par une île, appelée île du Faubourg. Par une approche
pluridisciplinaire, on a tenté de restituer l’épopée historique qui a vu l’édification, puis le maintien ou la reconstruction de ces ponts plusieurs fois ruinés par des actions naturelles ou
anthropiques.

Nous avons réalisé une analyse exploratoire in situ des deux pavillons japonais du jardin Albert KAHN complétée par des données recueillies sur la ferme japonaise du jardin d’acclimatation de Paris (dite maison de « Kiso »).  La caractérisation des bois et des polychromies nous a permis de déterminer certaines essences de bois employées, d’acquérir des données dendrométriques variées ou encore de découvrir la présence d’une couche de peinture correspondant très probablement à la couleur d’origine. Nous avons aussi pu enregistrer les données des polychromies existantes qui vont disparaître à la restauration et dont les seules traces qui subsisteront seront des archives scientifiques.

We led an in situ exploratory analysis of the 2 Albert Kahn garden’s Japanese pavilions completed by data collected on the Japanese farm of the jardin d’acclimatization of Paris (so-called house of “Kiso”). The characterization of wood and polychromy allowed us to identify some wood species, to acquire various dendrometrical data or to discover a blue paint layer probably corresponding to the original color. We were also able to save the data of existing polychromy which will disappear after restoration and whose the only remaining traces will be scientific archives.