The heavy alteration of historical materials makes them environmentally sensitive and, amongst the most challenging, to safely display and store. The amount of research into the predictive value of artificial aging of paper by means of thermal analysis is not sufficient yet and further efforts have to be made in this direction. There are authors claiming that the rate of paper deterioration and other quantitative aspects of the natural aging of paper, such as durability and permanence, cannot be reliably predicted by means of the present artificial aging tests. Consequently, the aim of the present study was to test the ability of thermal analysis to produce reliable predictions and mechanisms for the degradation of paper materials with a special interest for the old documents.

The experimental data allowed the prediction of the dependence between the half time and the temperature at which the paper support is kept. The obtained predictions were close to those proposed by the literature. Even more, we can say that our method gives better predictions taking into account the conservation state of some of the scrolls and cellulose based materials found at the Dead See. The results are correlated with other physical methods.

Our study also proves that the oxidising agents from the atmosphere (e.g. O₂ or pollutants as SO₂) strongly reduce the lifetime of the paper documents depending on temperature. This fact suggests, apart of the controlled temperature, the possible use of recipients filled with gaseous nitrogen for the preservation of the valuable old documents. This solution seems also to be a not very expensive one, taking into account the preservation advantages.