Palm leaves as writing support: compositional and multiscale structural analysis to trace the history of Asian manuscripts

Palm leaves were extensively used in Asia for the production of writing support, where the preparation process varies depending on the area. Although there are large collections of palm leaf manuscripts (PLM), scientific and humanitarian research to classify these documents is still lacking. By understanding the evolution of the structural and mechanical features of the leaves we expect to be able to trace the history of unclassified PLM. In a preliminary measurement we already proved that SAXS and WAXS are useful techniques to identify structural differences between 4 leaves of different origins and in different stages of preparation and 5 PLM. However, the number of samples was insufficient to draw solid conclusions. This time, we will use a total of 60 reference samples including herbarium leaves, leaves prepared at different monasteries with different recipes, and manuscripts. Also 5 to 10 historical manuscripts will be analyzed to investigate their origin and production method.