Conservation around the Millennium (Hungarian National Museum, 2001)
Pages - 109
Their is no doublure glued to the boards, the cover boards barely show traces of glue, which means there was no doublure. (Later nearly each doublure was torn away to see if it hides some writing.) (Picture 1) The section were stitched on double cleaved cords made of white goatskins of aluminous tanning. (OSZK Cod.Lat.425, OSZK Cod Lat 160.) We found only a single case where brown leather of vegetal tanning was used at the Damascenus codex. (OSZK Cod.Lat.345) The mounting leathers between the ribs could be analysed at two volumes. None were parchment but yellowish leather, probably tanned with grease. Since the grain was removed during tanning, the type of the leather could not exactly be determined. It most probably came from a game animal (buckskin?). Chemical reactions suggest that glue or starch was used for glueing. HEADBANDS Headbands were made after stitching the sections. It can be seen on the Damascenus codex that the rather soft skin of a game animal, probably tanned with grease, was used for mounting, similarly to the rest of the leathers between the cords. The core of the headband was sewn with flax threads through this skin onto a white twisted leather band of alum tanning at the middle of the section. Then it was decorated and trimmed with coloured silk. The colour of the silk was nearly always pink and green. At the more decorated items, a strip cut from one side gilt silver foil was wound around a yellow silk core. Each a hemp thread was kept under and above the twisted leather band during the stitching of the headband, which was made with a row of chain-stitches. The central row of stitches is straight. This can be seen on the fragment of the original headband of the Danascenus corvina and on corvina OSZK Cod.Lat.121. A video-microscopic shot was made of the same fragment showing the core thread and the metal thread wound around it. The core is S-twisted yellow, silk. The strip cut from gilt silver foil (with some copper content) was wound around an S-twisted yellow silk core in S-twist. The other characteristic headband type is where the ornamental coloured threads diagonally intersect each other. (Picture 2, 3) 1. Wooden back board and parchment endpaper of covina OSZK Cod.Lat.160 (before restoration) BOARDS The ends of the headbands and the cord straps were threaded through the holes pierced into the edges of the wooden boards at the spine, then they were pulled 109
