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the objects and the materials, and those arising from the tropical conditions under which they are kept and
maintained.
Initially, some twenty years ago, curators and conservators began to realise that artefacts in the tropics were quite
different in material, in technique and in their traditional use. Ignorance of these matters has often been disastrous.
For example miniatures, which normally have a matt surface, have often been so heavily varnished as to look like
oil paintings. In the past the UN ESCO journal Museum that aims at providing information about the conservation
of museum objects world-wide did this in terms of objects and materials found in the West (Agrawal, U., 1974).
Since then, more and more attention has been paid to the conservation of objects for which some of the tropical
countries have become so famous (see also section on Book and Writing Materials). In addition, the holdings of nonwestern
artefacts in western countries benefited greatly from this knowledge (Bennett, 1985; Tanabe, 1980).
Om Prakesh Agrawal published a book on the conservation of indigenous writing and painting materials of
Southeast Asia for the International Institute for the Conservation of M useum Objects (IIC). It is still very useful
for anyone working with birch bark, palm leaf, cloth paintings, paper manuscripts and paintings, and than-kas
(Agrawal, 1984). In an earlier work he dealt with the same subjects and in addition lacquer, bidri ware and shadow
puppets (Agrawal, 1975). The introduction into traditional customs, practices and norms in handling and conserving
the artefacts is interesting in both publications. Among other things, conservators of Asian manuscripts do not
always realise that one important function of temp les and monasteries was to take care of the preservation of ancient
manuscripts (see also Greene, 1992; Mellor, 1992; Mibach, 1992; Weersma, 1987). Technically some of the local
customs for dealing with artefacts are inconsistent with current preservation views. In the 1970s the reaction to
ardent devotees who adorn museum sculptures of gods with ointments and garlands was still negative. Curators were
advised to order their guards to check this practice (Baxi, 1974a). But the attitude of museum staff towards local
customs has changed over the years (see Barclay et al., 1988). T hese days the prevailing opinion in museum studies
is that indigenous populations have the right to perform their rituals around artefacts taken from them a long time
ago and now housed in a museum environment (see Nieç, 1998). We live in a time when people claim their rights
from governments. States are fo rced to return land, legal rights to artefacts are disputed and large groups of people
are compensated for damage inflicted on them in the past. These discussions will affect undoubtedly preservation
science sooner or later (also see Mulongo, 1992).
2.3.2 Climatic problems
The complete range of ill effects caused by heavy tropical climatic conditions on artefacts is a subject that has o nly
very recently claimed the attention of a larger audience in the world of conservation. Until now no companion,
guide, manual or reference book could be found exclusively dedicated to the typical problems a conservator
encounters in the tropics. Indeed, a number of articles appeared on certain collections or part of collections, or very
isolated typical problems, but an overall work has still to come. In the 1990s Agrawal published a more general work
on preservation. It was prepared with the aim of providing information in a simple language so that the principles
of preservation could be followed by the workers in more than 400 Indian museums. Regrettably the author did not
pay much attention to the adverse effects of the Indian climate on the artefacts (Agrawal, 1993).
2.3.3 Lamination
There is much debate about one book and paper preservation technology in particular: lamination. This subject
deserves our special attention as lamination is often seen in conservation labs in developing countries while in most
western countries it has been banned, after much discussion. A distinction needs to be made between archival
lamination and ‘office’ lamination. But it remains true that even archival lamination is not a good choice of treatment
for many papers.
Basically, it consists of sandwiching a document between two sheets of supporting materials. It is regularly
identified with a technique of inserting a document between two sheets of plastic material. An American archivist
W.J. B arrow invented this method some 60 years ago. Today there are many other hot sealing devices which can
be adopted for archive use. They were developed to reduce the high cost of the machine and also to reduce the high
temperature required for lamination (Karim, 1988).
As early as 1947 the new lamination process was reviewed in the Indian Archives (Chakravorti, 1947). By the
1960s lamination was already seen as a partial solution to paper conservation problems. Yet, Kathpalia pays a lot
of attention to all kinds of lamination processes. He explains the hot-sealing method with plastics as well as tissue
paper (Kathpalia, 1966).
In the main, laminatio n with cellulose acetate film as thermoplastic adhesive has been banned. At the very least
the cellulose acetate film has been replaced by polyethylene film. Cellulose acetate lamination is not a legitimate
preservation method anymore, its rep utation having suffered from the days when it was overdone and used
inappropriately. Many institutions gave it up when the Library of Congress dropped lamination in favour of
encapsulation in the early 1970s (McCrady, 1992).
Today most conservators prefer cold lamination above hot lamination, because there are too many disadvantages
to hot lamination. For one thing, it is a rigid method i.e. it is the same for each document (Karim, 1988). For another
it is hard to reverse. The quality of materials used is of critical importance. Meanwhile several d elamination projects
have been started to restore the documents that were badly damaged by lamination in the 1960s and 1970s.
Preservation has no all-purpose treatment. Many years ago, the term ‘lamination’ became almost synonymous
with ‘preservation’. It came to be viewed as the treatment of choice, and was even applied to documents in pristine
condition. Lamination is seldom appropriate to need, does not use stable materials, is radically intrusive, and difficult