RICERCA ITALIANA     

Archaeometrical investigations on plasters, paintings and floors at Pompeii: functional characterisation and implications for a new building chronology.

Università degli Studi di Padova

Abstract

Archaeometry is becoming more and more important in the study and conservation of the cultural heritage, with increasing interdisciplinary character. Indeed, the cultural heritage is the ideal topic where to apply and integrate knowledge and skill from different disciplines. In this way, many aspects of Human history can be investigated and assessed, such as, among others, the social, cultural, economical and technical ones, as well as those related to palaeoenvironment, agriculture, food, diseases and causes of death, and often within an absolute chronological frame.
The Roman town of Pompeii, due to the continuity in the human occupation and building activities, and also to its destruction during the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D., is extraordinarily well preserved, and therefore represents one of the most fascinating places in the world. Here archaeologists only recently started to excavate with stratigraphic methods, showing many chronologic inconsistencies, although in a frame which is generally correct.
The purpose of this Research Project is therefore to try to solve many of these problems with a multidisciplinary approach, dealing both with chronological aspects and functional ones. Our attention will focus on a large number of samples (approximately 1000) of plasters, paintings and floors, from different functional and chronological contexts. Materials, pigments, building techniques will be determined and characterised, in order to >>>

Principal Investigator

Claudio MAZZOLI Università degli Studi di PADOVA

Research Objectives

Stratigraphic excavating method is nowadays universally accepted by archaeologists, which more and more often require collaboration with specialists of different disciplines, in order to obtain as much information as possible on past civilizations. In archaeological sites such the one of Pompeii, where only recently stratigraphic criteria have been applied, building chronology is mainly relative, and only in few cases historical and historical-artistic information provided absolute chronological constraints. For this reason, we decided to propose this Research Project, where the innovative factor is the common programming of the research within a multidisciplinary context.
With the present Research Project, we intend to obtain the following results:
a) microstratigraphic, minero-petrographic and microtextural characterization of about 1000 samples of plasters, paintings and floors from different functionally and chronologically well defined contexts, using the numerous analytical approaches described in the Research Program, including the measure of the porosity with a new non destructive method under test by some of us;
b) analysis of the painting surfaces by means of a laser scanner, in order to obtain information on the painting techniques, to be integrated with microstratigraphic data;
c) statistical treatment of the data obtained, in order to discover relations among typology of the materials used for plaster, painting and floor >>>

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

Advice to the referees: please note that the text reported herein is exactly the same presented in the Project of the Research Unit of Padova, the only one of the Project.


Plasters, paintings and floors, as well as many other materials of artistic and archaeological interest, always stimulated the interest of scientists, and many studies on the characterization of these materials have been carried out. This interest significantly increased in the last twenty years both for the increasing attention of researchers and funding institutions to monitoring and conservation of the cultural heritage, and for the continuous development of non-destructive analytical techniques. Archaeometrical studies on characterization, conservation and restoration imply many different skills including, among others, those of geologists, chemists, engineers, biologists, physicists, and architects, although cooperation among them is often limited or absent. This is valid even for archaeologists, which frequently provide the material under study but cannot take full advantage of the results provided. In addition, many of these works are published on special issues, proceedings of conferences, sometimes in Italian language, limiting their diffusion and influence on the scientific community, without considering the fact that, although many of them are truly innovative and scientifically valid papers, often they are not properly refereed. Furthermore, many studies deal with the >>>