Investigation of Gold Gilding Materials and Techniques Applied in the Murals of Kizil Grottoes, Xinjiang, China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you very much for your time involved in reviewing our work and your detailed comments and encourage. We discussed each of comments and the problems you pointed out along with our corresponding responses.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors present a multi-analytical study of 10 gold foil found on the Kizil Grottoes mural painting by using optical microscopy, UV fluorescence microscopy, SEM-EDX and Py-GCMS.
Althouth the topic is interesting, the paper is difficult to read. The contents must be organized differently and and extensive editing of English language is absolutely required.
Some comments are reported below:
Line 8 “materials”
Line 12 “analyses”
Lines 13-18 are not clear, motify
Lines 31-34 are not clear
Lines 36-39 revise the English
Line 41 “critical physical carriers”, what’s means?
Line 43 motify “the main result focused on” to “the main results were focused on the identification of ”
Line 44 move the reference numbers after “Zhou”
Line 45-46 are not clear
Line 47-64 an extensive English review are required
Line 76-77 are not clear
Line 79 motify “And there is obviously that some black materials on the top layer of #4 and #7 samples” in “Moreover, some black materials cover the #4 and #7 samples”
Line 80 substitute “.” with “:”
Line 83-88 the sentences are not relevant in meaning, they could be deleted.
Line 96 substitute “.” with “(”
Line 97 Are the samples cut transversely?
Line 94-96 It is not clear the model of the microscope: A RX 50M (Soptop®, Ningbo) or UV microscope HAL100? Are they two distinct microscopes? Specify
Line 133 What’s means “In addition to #2 sample”? From the SEM-EDX maps, gold seems detected in all samples.
Line 136 Flakes? Do you mean foil?
Line 137 the sentence is not completed “in #2, gold leaf with some red particles in the upper layer”
Line 138 the sentence is not clear:” #5 has a distinct thick red layer and two layers of red on the upper gold layer”
Line 144-147 delete the sentence “It is difficult to tell from microscopy image which parts are organic and which are inorganic.” That is obvious. The next sentence is incorrect since all the elements with the low atomic number appear dark (for example Na, Cl, Si), delete it.
Line 159 “The pigment distribution in the lower gold layer may be lapis lazuli” this sentence is not motivated.
Lines 132-162 the paragraph needs to be better organized. I suggest, for examples, a description of each sample separately. In this form, It is difficult to read. Moreover, I suggest to add graphic element to the microscopic image for distinguishing all the layers with a numeration.
Table 2 substitute “C” with “carbon-based material”
Line 176-180 the sentence is not clear
Line 181 how you detect lapis lazuli?
Line 183 what does it mean “peaks of indeterminate carbon”?
Line 164-187 the entire paragraph is difficult to read, I suggest to revise the English form.
Line 211-212 delete “but”
Line 224-225 All the paragraph is difficult to read. Moreover, why the 1, 4 e 6 images of the figure 5 do not correspond to images of the Figure A5(a) and (b)?
Line 237-239 “Figure A4 showed that rhodamine staining showed orange-red fluorescence for oil, and pigment with animal glue (protein) shows green/white fluorescence after FITC staining.” From the figure, It seems the rhodamine staining showed orange-red fluorescence both for oil and protein, as FITC staining, that showed green fluorescence in both cases. There is some misunderstanding?
Line 240-255 the paragraph is difficult to read. I suggest to identify graphically in Fig.A5 a and b the organic layers for each sample, in this way, it could be more easy following the results in table 4. Moreover, how you can identify Lac resin? Do you have other information about the fluorescence behaviour of lac resin?
Line 303 Where is the scientific evidence of hematite?
Author Response
Thank you very much for your time involved in reviewing our work, your detailed comments and encourage. We discussed each of comments and the problems you pointed out along with our corresponding responses.
Please find more details in the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
