GEOMETRY AND INFORMATION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF A ROMAN MOSAIC THROUGH A HBIM APPROACH

Abstract. The archaeological site is a mine of data and information that helps to deepen the knowledge of its origin, history, and structure. This virtuous approach becomes even more effective when these data, properly processed and structured, form the basis for a project of conservation and enhancement of the cultural asset.The Roman mosaics dug in Castiglione delle Stiviere in 1995 represent an interesting case in which all the archaeological information, made available by the Superintendence, was used through an HBIM (Historical Building Information Modeling) approach for the conservation project. The Stratigraphic Units (US) of the findings have identified the strategy for the geometric and informative modeling of the BIM (Building Information Modeling) model and have also been exploited in the design phase for the project of the new roof structure and especially for the cost analysis. The structuring of the data by stratigraphic units was also used in the drafting of the preventive and planned conservation, necessary to enhance and prolong the state of good health of the property.This work has been developed in the internship activity within a training course on HBIM, in collaboration with the Diocese of Mantua, owner of the property

Proteomics for ancient protein degradation

Preservation of our cultural heritage is vital as it keeps alive the past that determines who we are, where we came from, and the human path's achievements over the years. Material culture, defined as every physical object, resource, and space that defines our culture, is powerful and appealing because it is probably more stable than human identity and social communities. Its preservation includes both cultural and economic processes. Chemistry has a very active role and contributes significantly to the preservation of our cultural heritage, helping to transmit this wealth to the next generations. The molecular characterization of archaeological objects and works of art replies to crucial questions such as: HOW and WHEN a masterpiece has been created, as also WHICH are the chemical degradation mechanisms that took place through the years. The answers to these questions are what determine how it will be kept alive in the future. However, chemistry is called upon to face immense challenges concerning the micro-invasiveness of the chemical approach, the high heterogeneity of the material encountered, and the tiny amount of samples in some of the cases. As a result, there is a demand for sensitive, versatile, and minimally invasive analytical approaches that can shed light on the origin of the material and its conservation state without provoking further deterioration. Mass spectrometry is an analytical tool that gained more and more attention in the last years because it includes fast analytical techniques of high sensitivity and accuracy that are micro destructive. Over the last 20 years, protein and mass spectrometry have been successfully adapted to the analysis of cultural heritage samples, actively contributing to the understanding of their origin and their preservation, a new scientific field known as palaeoproteomics. Proteins consist of a great target because of their high resistance over the years , giving us the possibility to recover information further back in time than previously thought possible. Palaeoproteomics is complementary to a variety of analytical techniques (physicochemical, geochemical, dating, microscopic etc.) That investigate components other than proteins in the archaeological object, aiming to the overall characterization of its origin, provenance and degradation state. The combination of these and proteomic approaches have obtained remarkable results in the field of cultural heritage, interpreting data related to the inorganic and organic material record of human cultural history. This Ph.D. project focused on developing proteomic analytical strategies with the use of mass spectrometry in archaeological objects and works of art. These strategies were used as such or combined with data obtained by other analytical approaches for a more in-depth insight of material origin and use and the chemical degradation mechanisms taking place over the years. After a brief introduction of the importance of cultural heritage, the types of cultural heritage materials and an overview on mass spectrometric analytical techniques herein used, chapter 2 explains the aim of the Ph.D. thesis and organizes the projects on the basis of the analytical techniques used in the single case of study. Chapter 3 reports a chemical review on palaeoproteomic analysis of bone and teeth as sources of collagen. Subsequently, the chapter reports proteomic strategies for the characterization of collagen-based materials ranging from archaeological bones to animal glues. Chapter 4 describes the development of novel micro-invasive techniques for the molecular characterization of proteins in archaeological objects and works of art. Chapter 5 reports the results of multidisciplinary approaches that combine proteomic strategies and mass spectrometry techniques with other analytical approaches such as microscopy and spectroscopy, with the final aim of characterizing organic materials in archaeological remains such as amphorae, historical paintings, and wooden coffins.All the data obtained from the aforementioned scientific projects have been later then organized in already published, under submission, or in preparation manuscripts

Across Space and Time. Papers from the 41st Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, Perth, 25-28 March 2013

This volume presents a selection of the best papers presented at the forty-first annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology. The theme for the conference was "Across Space and Time", and the papers explore a multitude of topics related to that concept, including databases, the semantic Web, geographical information systems, data collection and management, and more

Food and balms: combined botanical and chemical studies from funerary and domestic contexts

Questo studio consiste nell’analisi interdisciplinare di micro- e macro-resti vegetali provenienti da vari contesti archeologici e nell’identificazione dei rispettivi profili chimici. Comunemente, l’analisi di micro-resti quali granuli pollinici, fitoliti e NNPs (palinomorfi nonpollinici), e macro-resti vegetali, come semi e legni, avviene per mezzo di indagini microscopiche che permettono di riconoscere la morfologia e tassonomia della pianta di provenienza. Circa l’analisi dei residui dei materiali amorfi, la loro caratterizzazione si basa su biomarcatori, ossia molecole organiche che servono da indicatori chimici, rivelandone l'origine. Combinando i due approcci, il materiale per la ricerca è stato selezionato basandosi sullo stato di conservazione e sulla disponibilità. Inoltre, dato che il trattamento analitico di manufatti attraverso protocolli di laboratorialo è ridotto al necessario per limitare alterazioni e garantire usi futuri a fini di ricerca o musealizzazione, i campioni sono stati preparati secondo i metodi strumentali appropriati. In rellazione alle delle esigenze specifiche del materiale analizzato, ciascun campione è stato studiato mediante la microscopia ottica, stereo-microscopia e microscopia elettronica a scansione (SEM). Per l'analisi chimica, il residuo organico visibile è stato sottoposto a spettroscopia di trasformata di Fourier a riflettanza totale attenuata non distruttiva (ATR-FT-IR) e spettrometria di massa di gascromatografia a pirolisi minimamente distruttiva (Py-GC/MS). I residui organici recuperati da vasi di ceramica, identificati come contenitori di offerte alimentari, sono stati caratterizzati mediante gascromatografia- spettrometria di massa (GC/MS). Qualora pertinente, la frazione inorganica dei campioni è stata caratterizzata mediante SEM accoppiata con spettrometria a raggi X a dispersion di energia (SEM-EDS) e d diffrattometria a raggi X (XRD). Ciascuna tecnica è stata impiegata a seconda delle esigenze diversificate di ogni caso di studio. I dati acquisiti sono stati contestualizzati alle precedenti condizioni archeologiche e ambientali, nonché dei materiali naturali disponibili, consentendo un'interpretazione completa dei resti vegetali archeologici

Across Space and Time Papers from the 41st Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, Perth, 25-28 March 2013

The present volume includes 50 selected peer-reviewed papers presented at the 41st Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology Across Space and Time (CAA2013) conference held in Perth (Western Australia) in March 2013 at the University Club of Western Australia and hosted by the recently established CAA Australia National Chapter. It also hosts a paper presented at the 40th Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA2012) conference held in Southampton

8th. International congress on archaeology computer graphica. Cultural heritage and innovation

El lema del Congreso es: 'Documentación 3D avanzada, modelado y reconstrucción de objetos patrimoniales, monumentos y sitios.Invitamos a investigadores, profesores, arqueólogos, arquitectos, ingenieros, historiadores de arte... que se ocupan del patrimonio cultural desde la arqueología, la informática gráfica y la geomática, a compartir conocimientos y experiencias en el campo de la Arqueología Virtual. La participación de investigadores y empresas de prestigio será muy apreciada. Se ha preparado un atractivo e interesante programa para participantes y visitantes.Lerma García, JL. (2016). 8th. International congress on archaeology computer graphica. Cultural heritage and innovation. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/73708EDITORIA

Villages et quartiers à risque d’abandon

The issue of villages and neighborhoods at risk of abandonment is a common topic in many Mediterranean regions and is considered as a strategic point of the new European policies. The progressive abandonment of inland areas, with phenomena of emigration and fragmentation of cultural heritage, is a common trend in countries characterized by economic underdevelopment. This leads to the decay of architectural artifacts and buildings and problems with land management. Some aspects of this issue are also found in several urban areas. The goal of this research work is collecting international debates, discussions, opinions and comparisons concerning the analysis, study, surveys, diagnoses and graphical rendering of architectural heritage and landscape as well as demo-ethno-anthropological witnesses, typological-constructive stratifications, materials and technologies of traditional and vernacular constructions of historic buildings

Multimetal smithing : An urban craft in rural settings?

Multimetal smithing should be defined as the use of more than one metal and/or different metalworking techniques within thesame crafts-milieu. This complex metalworking has long been linked to centrality, central places and urbanity in Scandinavia.It has been extensively argued that fine casting and smithing, as well as manufacture utilizing precious metals was exclusivelyundertaken within early urban settings or the “central places” pre-dating these. Furthermore, the presence of complex metalcraftsmanship has been used as a driving indicator of the political, social and economic superiority of certain sites, therebyenhancing their identity as “centralities”.Recent research has come to challenge the universality of this link between urbanity, centrality and complex metalworkingas sites in rural settings with evidence of multimetal smithing are being identified. This shows that the relationship between thecraft and centrality (urbanity) must be nuanced and that perhaps multimetal craftsmanship should be reconsidered as an urbanindicator.The thesis project “From Crucible and onto Anvil” started in 2015 and focuses on sites housing remains of multimetalcraftsmanship dating primarily from 500-1000 AD. Within the project a comprehensive survey of sites will be used to evaluate thepresence of multimetal craftsmanship in the landscape. Sites in selected target areas will also be subject to intra-site analysisfocusing on workshop organisation, production output, metalworking techniques and chronological variances.A key aim in the project is to elucidate the conceptual aspects of complex metalworking. The term multimetality is used toanalytically frame all the societal and economic aspects of multimetal craftsmanship. Through this inclusive perspective both thecraftsmanship and the metalworkers behind it are positioned within the overall socioeconomic framework. The metalworkers,their skills and competences as well as the products of their labour are viewed as dynamic actors in the landscape and on thearenas of political economy of the Late Iron Age.The survey has already revealed interesting aspects concerning multimetal smithing and urbanity. Although the multimetalsites do cluster against areas of early urban development there are also other patterns emerging. Multimetal craftsmanship – both as practice and concept – was well represented in both rural peripheral settings and urban crafts-milieus. This means that therole of multimetality as part of an “urban conceptual package” is crucial to investigate. Such an approach will have the dual endsof properly understanding the craft and its societal implications, but also further the knowledge of the phenomenon of urbanityas a whole. Was multimetal smithing part of an “urban package” that spread into the rural landscape? Did the multimetality differbetween urban and rural crafts-milieus? How does early urbanity relate to the chronology of multimetal craftsmanship?This paper aims to counter these questions using examples from the survey of multimetal sites conducted within the thesisproject. A comparison between selected sites will be presented. The purpose of this is to evaluate the role of multimetality withinthe “urban package” and discuss the role of complex metalworking in the establishment of urban arenas of interaction in LateIron Age Scandinavia

The Rise of Narrative Animal Painting in France and Germany, 1790-1880

My dissertation argues that new theories of natural change and evolution in the early to mid-nineteenth century can be related to shifts in the Western European practice of animal painting during the same time period. The genre was fundamentally rethought in the nineteenth century, allowing animals to be featured as protagonists in narrative scenes of a kind once confined to grand-scale history painting. This study interweaves methods of art history and history of science, presenting artistic objects as forms of sensory knowledge that cannot be reduced to their informational content. Scientific illustrations and related media at this time were conversant with the stylistic concerns of academic painting, popular prints and other “non-scientific” imagery. The role played by anatomical instruction, natural history museums and other such institutions in the professional formation of artists whose production was deemed purely “aesthetic” in nature was likewise crucial. I address these issues in the artistic and intellectual contexts of France and Germany from the French Revolutionary period through the initial rise of Darwinism in the 1860s and 1870s. I contend that animal artists, both painters and illustrators, were operating within a continental print culture steeped in discourses of natural history and animal husbandry. In particular, I demonstrate how pre-Darwinian science, especially German Romantic approaches to natural history and early French iterations of evolutionary theory, embodied a growing preoccupation with species mutability. This fascination with hereditary shifts in organisms (often aided by human intervention) was prominently visualized in painted and printed depictions of both European livestock breeds and “exotic,” imported species. Chapter One sets forth the stakes for considering animal painting as a form of scientific knowledge and, conversely, treating scientific illustrations as aesthetic objects. Following this introduction, the four central chapters concentrate on works by animal genre specialists like Rosa Bonheur and Anton Braith, as well as artists such as Théodore Géricault and Adolph von Menzel, who were better known for human subject matter but also produced narrative animal tableaux. Chapter Two examines the relationship between the early professionalization of veterinary science in the late eighteenth century and the artistic preoccupation with the anatomy of horses, the quintessential militaristic, monarchical animal, focusing on Christian Bernhard Rode’s Berlin veterinary theater frescoes (1790) and Géricault’s Race of the Riderless Horses (1817) series of oil paintings. In Chapter Three we take up prints and paintings of a less glamorous animal––the cow/bull––whose economic significance was nevertheless vital to the French and German nations, as revealed by the popular cattle paintings of Rosa Bonheur and Anton Braith. Chapter Four considers the relationship of popular nineteenth century scientific book illustrations to the animal painting genre. Like period animal paintings, these illustrations shifted away from blank background specimen displays and towards a more elaborate, ecologically embedded representation of animal life. Chapter Five continues with this theme of the ecologically situated animal, examining the animal paintings of Gustave Courbet and Adolph von Menzel, who showed a deep interest in notions of habitat correspondent with the shift towards a more holistic view of animal life in the zoological sciences of the late nineteenth century.PHDHistory of ArtUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163230/1/triplest_1.pd

Neolithic land-use in the Dutch wetlands: estimating the land-use implications of resource exploitation strategies in the Middle Swifterbant Culture (4600-3900 BCE)

The Dutch wetlands witness the gradual adoption of Neolithic novelties by foraging societies during the Swifterbant period. Recent analyses provide new insights into the subsistence palette of Middle Swifterbant societies. Small-scale livestock herding and cultivation are in evidence at this time, but their importance if unclear. Within the framework of PAGES Land-use at 6000BP project, we aim to translate the information on resource exploitation into information on land-use that can be incorporated into global climate modelling efforts, with attention for the importance of agriculture. A reconstruction of patterns of resource exploitation and their land-use dimensions is complicated by methodological issues in comparing the results of varied recent investigations. Analyses of organic residues in ceramics have attested to the cooking of aquatic foods, ruminant meat, porcine meat, as well as rare cases of dairy. In terms of vegetative matter, some ceramics exclusively yielded evidence of wild plants, while others preserve cereal remains. Elevated δ15N values of human were interpreted as demonstrating an important aquatic component of the diet well into the 4th millennium BC. Yet recent assays on livestock remains suggest grazing on salt marshes partly accounts for the human values. Finally, renewed archaeozoological investigations have shown the early presence of domestic animals to be more limited than previously thought. We discuss the relative importance of exploited resources to produce a best-fit interpretation of changing patterns of land-use during the Middle Swifterbant phase. Our review combines recent archaeological data with wider data on anthropogenic influence on the landscape. Combining the results of plant macroremains, information from pollen cores about vegetation development, the structure of faunal assemblages, and finds of arable fields and dairy residue, we suggest the most parsimonious interpretation is one of a limited land-use footprint of cultivation and livestock keeping in Dutch wetlands between 4600 and 3900 BCE.NWOVidi 276-60-004Human Origin