AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

The stucco windows in museum stores are exposed to neglect. The stucco window in this study is preserved in the stores of the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, Egypt. Is not registered in the museum records, and this window has been subjected to many aspects of neglect, the most important of which is the fire that broke out in the museum in 2006. The firefighters used water to extinguish the fire, which affected the components of the window and caused many manifestations of damage to it, as proven by the necessary investigation and analysis that was conducted for each component of the window separately (stucco-glass – wood). A comprehensive investigation into Stucco window dating to the Ottoman period has been undertaken. Optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy coupled with EDX, X-ray diffraction, and Fourier transform infrared coupled with attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR) were the analytical tools used for the investigation. The analysis revealed that the stucco window was exposed to fire, causing the transformation of some of the gypsum to anhydrite. Furthermore, demonstrate that the stucco decoration was previously treated with a consolidant.