Tyndale Bible

I am a student at The Ohio State University researching a Tyndale
Bible, printed in England in 1566. The pages of the Bible are
covered in a yellow substance which is slightly waxy or resinous
with a slight gloss, and was brushed individually on each page
before re-binding around 1800, based on visible brushstrokes and
undyed sewing thread. My first goal is to determine what the coating
is. I have used Raman spectroscopy, Ultraviolet-Visible
Spectroscopy, Diffuse Reflectance, and Scanning Electron Microscopy
to analyze the yellow coating but the surface fluoresces strongly
and skews any possible data. I would like to know if there are other
examples of books coated in the same way in order to better
determine why the coating might have been put on the pages in the
first place.

Previous research coincidentally turned up another book with similar
coating in a collection in Belgium, interestingly another 16th
century Bible.

I would also appreciate any suggestions about which analytical
methods could be used in addition to the ones previously mentioned.


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 23:31
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