COST Action IE0601 “Wood Science for Conservation of Cultural Heritage (WoodCultHer)”
European Cultural Heritage includes large numbers of objects made partially or completely of wood, e.g. panel paintings, wooden sculptures, music instruments, furniture and fittings, tools, vehicles, timber structures, wooden foundation piles.
Wood is a peculiar material, of biological origin, highly variable, susceptible to physical chemical and biological deterioration, hygroscopic, swelling and shrinking due to temperature and humidity variations, anisotropic, viscoelastic, mechano-sorptive; its ageing behaviour is not yet well known.
Wood science has greatly developed in the last few decades, and only recently started to be applied to the conservation of wooden artworks.
This COST Action aims to improve the conservation (including study, preventive conservation and restoration) of European Wooden Cultural Heritage Objects (WCHOs), by fostering targeted research and multidisciplinary interaction between researchers in various fields of wood science, conservators of wooden artworks, other scientists from related fields.
Special emphasis will be given to the ageing of wood material (e.g. its factors – physical, mechanical, biological, chemical, environmental – and their interactions), methods for studying long-term deterioration, interactions between WCHOs and the environment (in the atmosphere, in the soil and in the water, thus including archaeological wood), evaluation of long-term compatibility of methods and products for restoration, evaluation of equipment for the diagnosis, restoration, monitoring and conservation of WCHOs, implementation of results into preventive conservation practice and standardization.