Conservation Department, Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University, Egypt.
Pol J Microbiol. 2010;59(4):271-80.
Fungal deterioration is one of the highest risk factors for damage of historical textile objects in Egypt. This paper represents both a study case about the fungal microflora deteriorating historical textiles in the Egyptian Museum and the Coptic museum in Cairo, and evaluation of the efficacy of several combinations of polymers with fungicides for the reinforcement of textiles and their prevention against fungal deterioration. Both cotton swab technique and biodeteriorated textile part technique were used for isolation of fungi from historical textile objects. The plate method with the manual key was used for identification of fungi. The results show that the most dominant fungi isolated from the tested textile samples belong to Alternaria, Aspergillus, Chaetomium, Penicillium and Trichoderma species. Microbiological testing was used for evaluating the usefulness of the suggested conservation materials (polymers combined with fungicides) in prevention of the fungal deterioration of ancient Egyptian textiles. Textile samples were treated with 4 selected polymers combined with two selected fungicides. Untreated and treated textile samples were deteriorated by 3 selected active fungal strains isolated from ancient Egyptian textiles. This study reports that most of the tested polymers combined with the tested fungicides prevented the fungal deterioration of textiles. Treatment of ancient textiles by suggested polymers combined with the suggested fungicides not only reinforces these textiles, but also prevents fungal deterioration and increases the durability of these textiles. The tested polymers without fungicides reduce the fungal deterioration of textiles but do not prevent it completely.
真菌恶化是导致埃及历史纺织品损坏的最高风险因素之一。本文既是对埃及博物馆和开罗科普特博物馆历史纺织品中真菌微菌群恶化情况的研究案例，也是对几种聚合物与杀真菌剂组合在纺织品加固及其真菌恶化防治方面效果的评估。从历史纺织品文物中分离真菌时，同时使用了棉签技术和生物恶化纺织品部分技术。使用平板法和手动关键进行真菌鉴定。结果表明，从测试的纺织品样本中分离出的最主要真菌属于链格孢属、曲霉属、毛壳菌属、青霉属和木霉属。微生物测试用于评估建议的保护材料（聚合物与杀真菌剂结合）在防止古埃及纺织品真菌恶化方面的有用性。用 4 种选定的聚合物与 2 种选定的杀真菌剂处理纺织样品。未处理和处理过的纺织样品被 3 种从古埃及纺织品中分离出的活性真菌菌株恶化。本研究报告称，大多数经过测试的聚合物与测试过的杀真菌剂结合，可防止纺织品的真菌恶化。用建议的聚合物与建议的杀真菌剂处理古代纺织品，不仅可以加固这些纺织品，还可以防止真菌恶化，增加这些纺织品的耐用性。未经杀真菌剂处理的测试聚合物可以减少纺织品的真菌恶化，但不能完全防止。
