Identificação biológica em estatuária sacra de madeira para fins de conservação

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to identify the most common woods used in manufacturing religious sculptures in Belém, Pará and to identify some of their potencial attackers. The study is centered in the statuary oftwo important historie sites in Belém: Igreja de Santo Alexandre and Capela da Ordem Terceira do Carmo. From these sites, 22 statues were selected and some xylophagopus insects were colected. The cedar (Cedrela aff. odorata) was the most common woodfound and the xylophagus insects, colected in the environment, were identified as: Nasutitermes nigriceps and Cryptotermes havilandi. These results enable us lO execute an experiment lO verify the behavior of these termites when confronting cedar pieces, where we showed lhar the natural resistance of lhe cedar actually has its origin in cedar's chemical barrier (resin). This study enabled us lO develop a specific conservation program lO determine lhe mOsl effective means of controlling the biodeterioration in these sculptures.