Scanning electron microscope images of conserved archaeological wood

The repository contains images of conserved archaeological wood samples taken with a scanning electron microscope as part of the CuTAWAY project. The CuTAWAY project was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) from 2019 to 2023 (CuTAWAY - Conservation and Wood Analyses, DFG - 416877131 and SNSF - 200021E_183684). 

The samples were selected from the LEIZA reference collection, which was created within the framework of the project "Mass Finds in Archaeological Collections", which was funded by the "Kulturstiftung des Bundes" and the "Kulturstiftung der Länder" from 15.04.2008 to 31.12.2011 as part of the "Program for the Conservation and Restoration of Mobile Cultural Property" (KUR, see www.rgzm.de/kur).

A series of coniferous wood samples (V03) was selected for scanning electron microscopy. The samples were taken from an undated water pipe from Stralsund, Germany. The wood species is defined as coniferous (Pinus sp.). The water pipe shows slightly degraded heartwood and heavily degraded areas in the outer regions. Prior to testing, core samples were taken with a 5 mm increment borer from the heavily degraded area (hd). They were cut with a scalpel. For scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis, slices of the core samples were taken with the scalpel. These were fixed on a sample plate and then sputtered with gold (sputter coater SCD 040, Balzers, Liechtenstein). The thickness of the gold was approximately 10 nm. The examination was then carried out in a SEM (Evo 25, Carl Zeiss GmbH, Jena, Germany) at IMPALA (IMaging Platform At LeizA) in high vacuum mode (1.18 × 10-04 Pa) and an accelerating voltage of 10 kV. Data acquisition was performed between July 2021 and November 2021.

The data zone on the images shows only a subset of the metadata (acquisition settings). All metadata can be retrieved from the TIF files using e.g. the plugin IMBalENce for ImageJ/Fiji [link]". https://imagej.net/plugins/imbalence