A-t-on détérioré la Déclaration d'indépendance? Oui disent les experts.

La Déclaration d'indépendance est probablement le document le plus important aux yeux de nos voisins du sud. Il semble qu'entre 1903 et 1940 on se soit autorisé certaines manipulations douteuses du document et qu'on ait ainsi contribué à détériorer l'encre d'origine. Le développement de la science et des techniques contribuera sans doute à mieux préserver ces trésors dans les archives...

 "“The defining damage that made the Declaration what it is today was not the result of 19th-century copying or excessive exhibition, but occurred in the 20th century,” wrote Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler, the Archives’ retired chief of conservation, and Catherine Nicholson, the retired deputy chief.

“Something happened after 1903 that caused that damage, and made people... enhance the signatures,” Ritzenthaler said in an interview Friday.

 Perhaps it was a botched mounting technique or a flattening procedure, she said.

“Somebody might have tried something and didn’t have very good results, and this was their reaction,” she said."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/was-the-declaration-of-independence-defaced-experts-say-yes/2016/10/21/5bb6efaa-96d9-11e6-bb29-bf2701dbe0a3_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_declaration-245pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory