XXV IUCr Congress in Prague 2021

The CrysAC commission played an active role at the IUCr Congress in Prague which was for the first time in a hybrid form, combining both on-site and remote attendance. The chair of the commission, Gilberto Artioli, provided online an engaging and inspiring Keynote Lecture "Crystallography and cultural heritage – On beauty, science, and passion". The programme of both microsymposia organised by the commission attracted a wide audience.

The MS-78 "Science meets art: X-ray spectrometry and X-ray diffraction in art and archaeology", co-chaired by Gilberto Artioli (remote) and Sebastian Bette (on-site), was opened by an invited lecture by Katrien Keune dedicated to Operation Night Watch – the extensive investigation of Rembrandt’s masterpiece occurring in the exposition in Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

The MS-85 "Science meets art: Crystallography and cultural heritage", chaired by Petr Bezdička (on-site), was opened by the invited lecture by Koen Janssens who presented the potential of MA-XRD in the fingerprinting of natural ultramarine based on the non-invasive identification of mineral phases forming the pigment.

In both microsymposia, the lecturers illustrated the importance of X-ray as well as electron diffraction techniques for the identification of materials in artworks (Christoph Berthold, Chiaramaria Stanii, Partha Pratim Das, Eva Kočí) as well as for description of secondary degradation products affecting the artworks' stability and appearance (Silvie Švarcová, Sebastian Bette). At the frontier between archaeometry and forensic science was the contribution by Hannah Louise Cross about the effects of soft tissues on crystallographic changes to the bone mineral hydroxyapatite. Symmetry in architecture, Islamic building ornaments and ivory puzzle balls was reflected in interesting lectures provided by Arie van der Lee, Peter Moeck and Grygoriy Dmytriv.

The presentations are accessible for registered participants at: IUCr 2021 Conference Agenda.

Preparation of the 6th CrysAC workshop and a microsymposium for the 33rd ECM in Versailles (August 2022)

The 6th CrysAC Workshop on "Micro- and nano-diffraction for cultural heritage" is being planned to take place as a satellite action of the 33rd European Crystallographic Meeting (Versailles, France, 23-27 August 2022). It will focus on advanced techniques for single-crystal diffraction in the micro-nano regimes. It will mainly involve state of the art techniques based on synchrotron radiation and the application of ED/SPED techniques on materials of interest for cultural heritage.

The microsymposium #43 on "Crystallography for cultural heritage materials" at the 33rd ECM in Versailles is in preparation. The section will be chaired by Dr Victor Etgens (IPANEMA, France) and Dr Silvie Švarcová (ALMA Laboratory, Czech Republic).