Study on conservation of mural paintings in tumuli

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In this research project we studied environmental factors for the conservation of mural paintings mainly in Takamatsuzuka tumulus and Kitora tumulus. Both tumuli were made around the beginning of the eighth century at Asuka village, Nara. The mural paintings on lime plaster layers inside stone chambers of the tumuli are recently suffered severe biological damages. We examined the temperature of recent 30 years at Nara and indicated that it caused an increase of temperature inside the stone chamber of Takamatsuzuka tumulus. We also studied the moisture and thermal regime of the mound of Takamatsuzuka tumulus and found that the equilibrium RH inside the stone chamber with the moisture content of the mound soil is 100%, which is consistent with our measured data. Moist layers of brown dirt over the paintings are analyzed. The result showed that the dirt is a biofilm, a mixture of bacteria and fungi. A genetic analysis revealed that the major species of bacteria are different at the two tumuli while some species of fungi are similar.