Tidy up scanned hand drawings

Dear forum,
I have several hundred TIF images at 1200 dpi+ which represent scans of hand drawings on parchment paper using pencil or ink-pen (.2mm or thereabouts) of 4000 year old cuneiform documents. The drawings were made over an extended period of time, the paper varied, and ultimately, the scans reflect this in that some lines are darker than others and there are occasional 'smudgy' areas etc.
What I would like to do prior to publication is to sharpen the images and make them consistent across the repertoire as black on white background.
I'm not well versed in the details of how various Photoshop (CS5, Mac) commands do what they do, but I've found several that seem like they might get me where I want to go: Levels (Auto?), Threshold, Shadows/Highlights... and there may be more that I don't know about.
I'm hoping someone can point me in the ideal direction for this sort of task, which I'd like to automate to run over a directory of images if possible. At the same time, I might have to change the dpi and output format of the new images.
I've attached a sample. In this case, the drawing is fairly clear (not much 'grey' background) but the lines are not as black and sharp as they could be.
Many thanks for any help that anyone can offer!
Best
KF

Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions on how to go about this. I finally came up with the following method, which may not be the most efficient, but it works...
Tidy up the drawings using pen (fill in unclosed loops) and eraser (remove overshot of original pen).
Add new adjustment layer: levels. Manually adjust to remove mid-tones and get a reasonably but not over-dark image.
Save.
Apply magic want to background (i.e. 'white' area).
Select inverse.
Refine edges with smooth set to 20, output to layer mask.
Add new layer, fill with white; move to just above background layer.
Add new layer, fill with black; move the layer mask from above to this layer.
Move the levels adjustment layer to just above background layer.
Hide background.
Flatten image.
Save in 1200dpi output directory.
Change image size to 600dpi.
Save in 600dpi output directory.
I saved this as an action, with pause at the levels adjustment layer, since it seems best to adjust for each image. I've also found that since it is best to touch up all the drawings individually, I may as well run this action right afterwards, rather than as a big batch job.
Hope this may be helpful to someone else.
Best
KF

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Tidy up scanned hand drawings

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