Holy Grail possibly made from clay.

The main goal of the work was to find biochemical protein markers specific for grapes and wine in ancient amphorae shards and fermentation pools. Grape-specific proteins are more reliable markers than tartaric acid and other small organic acids (tartaric acid natural source are not only grape but also apple, mango, and other plants). The Yavne winery (located in the Central District of Israel) is stated to be the largest known wine production complex from the Byzantine period (ca. 1500 years ago). The site has been excavated recently, and a number of wine jar have been recovered. We have applied our ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) (EVA studded with strong cation and anion exchangers) diskettes to the inner surface of a number of jars, thus capturing residual grape proteins therein. Via mass spectrometry analyses, we have been able to identify four grape and three yeast proteins. This has been possible because the EVA films, applied to such surfaces, are able to harvest and concentrate any trace species, rendering them amenable to instrumental analysis. Our analysis makes it possible to propose an explanation for the Holy Grail phenomenon as a dish in which wine or water begins to smell pleasant. We attribute this to the slow release of terpenes, aldehydes, and ketones from the clay walls of pottery. After digital modeling, we identified that "scallop-shaped" niches in winery were used for the condensation of high percentage alcohol by passive evaporation from fermentation tanks.

EVA Technology and Proteomics: A Two-Pronged Attack on Cultural Heritage.

A novel way for exploring the world's cultural heritage in the absence of damage or contamination (such as removing pigments in paintings or chipping away pieces of bones) of the items under investigation is here reported, called the EVA technique. It is based on films of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) impregnated with strong anion and cation exchangers, admixed with hydrophobic resins, C8 and C18. When in contact with any surface these films can harvest nanomoles of macromolecules (proteins and DNA) as well as metabolites, which can then be identified by standard instrumentation. Some important applications are reported, such as the findings of the renal pathology and assumption of morphine in the original manuscript of Master I Margarita by Bulgakov, the presence of TBC bacterium in Chekhov's shirt and in a letter by Orwell, the Y. pestis and anthrax bacteria in the death registries of Milan's lazaretto in the 1630 plague bout, as well as ample traces of five metals in Kepler's manuscripts, suggesting his potential practice of alchemy. Also, in the pages of the Memoirs of Casanova, although the gonorrhea bacterium could not be found, spots of HgS could be measured, suggesting its use for curing the disease. A family of EVA films is described, enlarging its use to dedicated applications, such as the capture of drugs of abuse in the pages of famous writers and even in the paintings of fauvists. It is hoped that the present methodology could open the doors of museums, state archives, and private collections for detecting biological traces left by artists, literates, and men of culture in their masterpieces.

Stalin's "black dog": a postmortem diagnosis.

Undoubtedly, the two leaders who were under enormous pressure during World War II (WWII) were Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin' since their respective countries had to sustain most of the war weight, at least in Europe. Lord Moran recounted in his memoir Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival that he had diagnosed a middle-aged Churchill with bipolar disorder. Churchill himself often referred to his periods of intense and prolonged depression as his "black dog." On the contrary, not much is known about Stalin's mental conditions, although in 1927 the neurologist V. M. Bekhterev, the day prior to his sudden death, upon a long examination of the leader's mental status, declared that he had found him affected by paranoia. No chemical evidence via clinical chemistry analyses was provided for the two leaders, though. We have had access to the collection of books (stored in the Russian Government Archive of Social and Political History, RGASPI, of the former Institute of Marxism and Leninism under the Central Committee of the USSR Communist Party) that Stalin was reading during WWII, with pages containing personal annotations on the margins. Upon harvesting surface material via EVA disks (ethylene-vinyl acetate studded with strong cation and anion exchangers and C8-C18 resins) and instrumental analysis via X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, we detected lithium levels (~ 100 ± 8 ng/cm2) compatible with those present in the sweat and/or saliva of patients treated with lithium salts for curing bipolarity and paranoia or probably gout. These data are the first clear indication that Stalin was under cure for this pathology.Graphical abstract.

New baits for fishing in cultural heritage's Mare Magnum.

We describe here a modern tool for exploring documents pertaining to the world Cultural Heritage while avoiding their contamination or damage. Known under the acronym EVA, it consists of a plastic foil of Ethylene Vinyl Acetate studded with strong cation and anion resins admixed with C8 and C18 hydrophobic beads. When applied to any surface such foils can harvest any type of surface material, which is then eluted and analyzed via standard means, such as GS/MS (typically for metabolites), MS/MS (for peptide and protein analysis), X-ray (for elemental analysis). We briefly review here a number of past data, such as screening of original documents by Bulgakov, Chekov, Casanova, Kepler, while dealing in extenso with very recent data, pertaining to Orwell and Stalin and analysis of the skin of an Egyptian mummy. The technique was also successfully applied to paintings, such as the Donna Nuda at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, attributed to Leonardo and his school. This novel methodology represents a formidable tool for exploring the past life of famous authors, scientist and literates in that it can detect traces of their pathologies and even drug consumption left by saliva and sweat traces on their original hand-written documents.

Proteomics and metabolomics composition of the ink of a letter in a fragment of a Dead Sea Scroll from Cave 11 (P1032-Fr0).

It is well established that the ink pigment used for writing the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) is mainly composed of carbon soot. The ink's binder however has yet to be securely identified. By applying EVA (ethylene vinyl acetate containing strong anion and cation exchangers admixed with C8 and C18) diskettes on one fragment and analyzing the captured material, the following study was able to determine the composition of the binder. Proteins admixed of plant proteins (ribulose biphosphate carboxylase, rhamnogalacturonate lyase, α-galactosidase A, calmodulin, among those identified) as well as of a few glycoproteins with different combinations of pentosyl and hexosyl units with plant acids (stearic, palmitic, oleic, linoleic and linolenic acids) and terpenes (triacontanol, catechin, lupeol) are mixed attributes of acacia trees which suggests the use of gum Arabic as the ink's binder. SIGNIFICANCE: Whereas a huge body of reports has explored any possible aspect of the Dead Sea Scrolls, including the dating and the animal origin of the parchment, one aspect had not been investigated so far, namely which kind of ligand had been adopted to ensure a firm binding of the ink (in reality carbon soot) to the supporting parchment. In the present investigation it has been demonstrated that this "glue" is a mixture of plant proteins, as well as a few glycoproteins, together with plant acids and terpenes. These proteins and metabolites belong to two species of trees, Vachellia nilotica and Acacia Albida, widespread in this Middle East region. The EVA methodology here adopted has shown that it is possible to explore any item pertaining to the world Cultural Heritage in the absence of damage or contamination thus permititng to analyze any possible precious document stored in museum, public libraries and private collections.