Paris: It looks like the house of Bond’s villain: buried behind the armored door, under the Louvre in Paris, is one of the most high-tech art laboratories in the world.
Over three floors and almost 6,000 square meters, the Research and Restoration Center of the French Museum (C2RMF) houses the AGLAE particle accelerator and is of interest to radiologists, chemists, geologists, metallurgists, archaeologists and engineers.
A team of 150 examines around 1,000 works of art a year and finds out what materials and techniques they are made of, their provenance and age, and how they have changed over the years.
His research informs restoration teams at the center, at the Louvre, Versailles and elsewhere.
Since its inception in 1999, many great works of art have passed through the laboratory, such as the stained glass window of Notre-Dame Cathedral or Napoleon’s sword, the Mona Lisa.
In a rare visit to AFP recently, an 11th-century bronze statue of the Hindu god Vishnu arrived from Cambodia ahead of exhibitions in France and the United States next year.
The Khmer artwork, “Vishnu of Western Mebon” was discovered in Angkor Wat in 1936, a rare representation of a Hindu god that is about six meters in size when complete.
Behind thick, led doors, a team of 10 experts run X-rays and 3D scans on the sculpture.
Some fragments will be tested using methods such as gamma ray and electron bombardment X-ray fluorescence and spectrometry to determine their chemical and molecular composition.
“We are like NASA, each with its own specialty, or ‘CSI: Miami,’ the science police,” said David Bourgarit, archaeo-metallurgical research engineer.
“Our crime scenes are archaeological discoveries. Like police investigations, we try to understand who created them, how and why.”
Pointing to the small white dots around the statue’s eyebrows, he said it was another metal “denseer than copper” that would require further analysis to identify.
This group also has traces of clay used to make the initial remains for sculptures.
This will allow you to determine exactly where it was made compared to the soil sample.
Some pieces can pass through the AGLAE (French acronym for the Grand Louvre Accelerator of Elemental Analysis), which was built in the 1990s and is the only work of art in the world.
In a space packed with equipment, linear accelerators create particles in artwork and artifacts and cause screeching sounds when they explode.
This allows scientists to determine the number and combination of elements in the object, adding another layer of analysis for dating and authenticity.
The high-tech art lab hidden underneath Paris
