“Figurative initials in Georgian manuscripts of the 10th-13th centuries and issues of preventive conservation”

The conservation works carried out on manuscripts in order to ensure future protection, provides a solid foundation for the research of the Georgian decorated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, the determination of its national or general cultural significance. The conservation has long gone beyond the framework of possessing only practical skills and requires specialists to have modern methods of conservation, diagnosis and forecasting technology.
The activity designed to preserve the original authentic form of written antiquities is a very careful and time-consuming activity, since it requires not only the possession of general conservation methods and techniques, but also the consideration of exhaustive information about each restoration unit. That is why the initial stage of the conservation-restoration process is the previous restoration research. Their conservation is subject not only to conservators, but also to codicologists, textologists and art historians, to dialogue and joint consideration of the issue. Preventive conservation of cultural heritage is the most important issue in conservation today. Prevention, hazard and spoilage reduction is more effective than any form of remedial intervention. Judiciously implemented preventive conservation measures can stabilize and protect a manuscript.