Research and work processes on documentary and bibliographic cultural productions

In her ESSAY, Martha Elena Romero Ramírez gives us a glimpse of the adventures of shipwrecked books (an expression the author had originally proposed as part of the title for her submission) through the historiographical analysis of a sixteenth century diary, and how said study provided handling criteria for waterlogged bindings, while also providing an overview of the book’s structure and ways to face the external vicissitudes which may threaten it.

Meanwhile, in her RESEARCH, Rosaura Mitra Ávila evaluates an interdisciplinary documentary diagnostic carried out in the Technical Archive of the Coordinación Nacional de Arqueología at the Instituto Nacional de Antropología (CNA-INAH), in Mexico City, which enabled her to locate paleontological documents that have been subsumed in sections from other disciplines and, thus, form an archive that will highlight this area's contributions.

In her RESEARCH, Natalia Ríos Martínez presents the challenges of evaluating diagnostic models for documentary collections, to then propose an ad hoc one for Chile’s Fondo Documental de la Real Audiencia which, in addition to taking into account the specific technical practices on items, integrally considers the issue of conservation of such a collection, in order to foster improved procedures.

Identification and reflection on techniques, materials, policies on handling and preservation for built cultural productions and those attached to architecture

Daniel Meléndez García, Fernanda Martínez Camacho, Perla Téllez Cruz and Armando Arciniega-Corona share the RESEARCH where they took advantage of the liming of a mural painting in the former convent of Santo Domingo Tehuantepec, in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico -which had maintained that production without interventions- to carry out minute studies of its colors using exact sciences methodologies and instruments, as well as to appreciate the stratigraphies and mixtures so as to identify both its manufacturing attributes and the cultural significances operating at the time.

Elizabeth Lozada Amador and Francisco Omar Lagarda García present their analysis of the sites housing machinery to drain mines which were built by English immigrants with cutting edge steam technology in the cities of Real del Monte and Pachuca, State of Hidalgo, Mexico. This work is combined with a reflection on the current risks regarding their preservation and the complexity of reactivating the use of such constructions.

In their ACADEMIC REPORT, Gladys Martínez Aguilar and Polimnia Zacarías Capistrán explain the architecture in the historical center of the city of Xalapa, State of Veracruz, Mexico; as well as the contextual dynamics produced, on the one hand, by changes to public spaces and historic buildings in this capital and, on the other, local organization and appreciation in response.

Studies on materiality of objects: understanding their expressive and functional particularities and how these affect their conservation

The last three ACADEMIC REPORTS eloquently convey the various displays and projections that can be gestated through studies of materiality.

In her text, Yana Arantxa Ramírez Sánchez establishes the technical-pictoric sequence of the life of the Virgin -preserved in Guadalupe sanctuary, in San Felipe, State of Chihuahua- by José de Páez, on which she carried out X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and microscopic studies of strata samples, which was discussed with the artist’s compositional, expressive and plastic practices.

In his contribution, David Alberto Flores Rosas describes the methodology for the compositional analysis of the painting The Stigmatization of Saint Francis of Assisi (by it's name in English), attributed to Baltasar de Echave Orio. X-ray tests were not the only central contributions in detecting the virtuoso aspects in the creation of this piece, but also how the aural section was applied, which was deemed to point to the author’s unique traits, such as his expertise and European training.

María Barajas Rocha, Lilia Patricia Olvera Coronel, Gabriela Cruz Chagoyán, Irais Velasco Figueroa and Adriana Sanromán Peyron associate various biological studies of types of wood comprising object offerings in the archaeological site of the Templo Mayor, in Mexico City, which derives in notes that link to historical information on their manufacture, form and function. Furthermore, they explain, on the one hand, the pieces’ mechanisms of deterioration due to humidity in the burial context and, on the other, the decisions and evaluations of conservation treatments.

Thus, this new number of Intervención provides fruitful responses to the current complex reality, where pandemic and health vie for the front page. In particular, it expresses current approximations to a first thematic-reflective line that delves into both the historiographic potential of an ancient book or the integral diagnostics and forming of archives; a second axis broaches the precarity of industrial structures and historic buildings, or emphasizes the style and significance of productions built or attached to architecture and, finally, a third movement follows a reflective course of studies with interdisciplinary techniques that lead the cultural productions to dialogue with considerations for conservation treatments.