Antimicrobial activity of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on deterioration of archeological gilded painted cartonnage, late period, Saqqara, Egypt.

ABSTRACTA piece of polychrome and gilded cartonnage mask was excavated by the Ministry of Antiquities in Saqqara region. It belongs to the late period (664 – 332 BC). The mask upon mummy presented a gilded face with heavy wig height 30–40 cm was painted with green, black eye brow and red mouth. Cartonnage is a composite material consists of organic support contains many glued layers of linen or papyri that have the ground painting layers. It suffers from many deterioration aspects (microbial pigments, and flaking most likely due to inappropriate storage. Examination study was performed to analyze and investigate the ground painting and gilding layer of the cartonnage by Optical light microscopy, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with energy dispersive × ray analysis, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results confirmed that the degradation factors affecting on the painted, gilded cartonnage was attributed to the direct effects of microbial phenomena, ...