From Molecules to Manuscripts

Chemistry has always been at the heart of my academic interests. As a teenager, I was obsessed was rocks. I remember staring at mineral specimens and trying to figure out how the chemistry I was learning at school related to the complex chemistry of rocks, and how crystals formed. Funnily enough though, my favourite part of chemistry at school was organic chemistry. I loved the logic of it; it felt like a giant puzzle that you could decode if you learned all the pieces, the functional groups and how they interacted. There was something deeply satisfying about seeing patterns emerge and understanding how molecules behaved. I wavered for a long time between choosing Chemistry or Geology to study at university, but in the end, I had a panic about the maths and opted for Geography instead. It all worked out in the end, though, because that decision opened the door to archaeology and the interdisciplinary world I now inhabit. And as much as I still love rocks, it turns out people can be quite interesting too.

My doctoral research was a joint venture between archaeology and chemistry, supervised by Wendy Matthews (Archaeology) and Matthew Almond (Chemistry). Almond, an inorganic analytical chemist and FTIR expert, was very interested in pigments, first in forensic contexts, then in archaeological ones. I started out focusing on FTIR for my PhD, but in the end my archaeological questions led me more toward organic chemistry, which offered the best tools for identifying coprolites.

Today, as I develop the heritage science profile at Durham, I find myself returning to the inorganic realm. The Department of Archaeology at Durham has a long history in archaeomaterials research, using a wide range of largely inorganic spectroscopic methods. I’ve also been learning about Durham’s long-standing contributions to this field through other disciplines, for example through Team Pigment. Founded in 2013 during the Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition, Team Pigment brought together chemists and historians to study the inks and pigments of early Northumbrian manuscripts using non-invasive techniques. Their work has been transformative: using portable Raman spectroscopy, diffuse reflectance, and hyperspectral imaging, they’ve identified pigments in manuscripts spanning from late Antiquity to the fifteenth century. For example, their analysis of Canterbury manuscripts from 950–1150 revealed the introduction of lapis lazuli and vermilion from the continent, and even uncovered the first known British manuscript containing Egyptian Blue. They’ve also examined iconic works like the Durham Gospels and Lindisfarne Gospels, mapping pigment choices as indicators of cultural exchange and technological innovation. What fascinates me most is how these studies combine cutting-edge science with deep historical insight, showing that the colours on a page can tell stories about trade, identity, and creativity across centuries.

As I look ahead, I’m excited by the possibilities of integrating organic and inorganic approaches, as complementary tools for exploring human history. There is some really brilliant work being done right now for example on 'biocodicology', the study of the biological information stored in manuscripts, using proteomics to identify the species of animal skins used as parchment. Together with analysis of inks and pigments, this research is creating new and innovative ways to explore ancient technology, craftsmanship, and connections. 

The future is even more exciting. As technology advances, we have the potential to combine the structural information revealed by XR-CT imaging with the compositional insights provided by spectroscopic techniques used to identify pigments, and the biomolecular techniques used to identify parchment. XR-CT will enable us to understand how books were made, how they were modified and repaired over their lifetime, at least, those that we can fit inside the scanner!

These datasets are incredibly rich and complex, and the challenge of integrating them is daunting, but AI and machine learning tools promise to revolutionise how we analyse and interpret this information. Durham is the ideal place to make this happen: with world-class expertise in the Department of Computer Science and the Advanced Research Computing (ARC) resource, we have the capability to build powerful collaborations that bridge heritage science and data science. This convergence of disciplines will allow us to unlock new ways of understanding and preserving the material past, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in archaeological research.