An innovative method to select a suitable fraction for mortar 14C dating: the Cryo2SoniC protocol.

To date, mortar radiocarbon (14C) dating represents one of the main “open issues” involving the whole radiocarbon community because, after about 50 years of experimentation, the possibility to evaluate absolute chronologies for these artifact by radiocarbon remains still uncertain. This work describes i) the development of a new methodology, called Cryo2SoniC, aimed to select a fraction of mortars recording the time of setting, ii) the evaluation of Cryo2SoniC main drawbacks and successes, when it is applied on archaeological mortar. The proposed method is based upon a physical procedure (ultrasonication) isolating only the binder calcite formed by means of the absorption of atmospheric CO2 during the mortar setting. Proposed procedure was tested, at first, on a series of synthetic mortars produced in the laboratory and lime lumps, using a first version of the separation method (i.e. CryoSoniC) and then applying the ungraded version, Cryo2SoniC, on a series of archeological samples from different important historic monuments and excavations. All measured radiocarbon ages were compared with their chronological reference allowing accuracy evaluation. Radiocarbon dating was performed on the selected fractions using high-precision (i.e. 0.3% prescision) Accelerator Mass Spectroscometry (AMS). Mineralogical investigations for mortar charcterization were performed on original mortars by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) of powders, observations of thin section with Optical Microscopy (OM) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). An inter-comparison exercise has been performed between CIRCE and the Poznan Radiocarbon Laboratory to verify the efficiency of different separation methods (Cryo2SoniC vs stepped digestion) performed on the same samples. InfraRed Fourier Transformed Spectroscopy (FTIR), SEM and ChatodoLuminescence (CL) analyses were performed to verify eventual dead carbon contamination affecting Cyo2SoniC produced fractions and consequentially develop a diagnostic tool i) to gather information about observed pitfalls of the methodology ii) to preliminarly predict the quality of CryoSoniC isolated fractions. Final balance of this research is the reliability and efficiency of the Cryo2SoniC method on a widespread spectra of mortar typologies, highlighting its weak points and suggesting alternative solutions such as the purification of lime lumps incased in mortars

Reception and Artefacts in the Making of Late Eighteenth-Century Visual Culture: The Cultural Biography of Sir William Hamilton’s Vases

This doctoral thesis examines the cultural biographies of Sir William Hamilton’s collections of ancient Greek vases, including the ways in which meanings and values were attributed to them. More specifically, this thesis compares various practices of recording, copying and appropriating objects from these collections, and in so doing discusses the various ways of interpreting them. By reproducing a specific repertoire of images from a variety of popular media, it aims to rediscover a late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century way of viewing, receiving and appreciating classical art. These media (e.g. engraved antiquarian catalogues, paintings, drawings, sketches and selected forms of craftsmanship such as Wedgwood’s pottery and Sir John Soane’s cork models) appropriated and fabricated antique culture in the form of figured vases. In other words, this thesis considers the effect of various aesthetic changes and artistic choices on the production and distribution of images that were taken from Hamilton’s vases during the decades around 1800. My central argument is that the visual reproduction of Hamilton’s vases was a pervasive and essential constituent of the contemporary pursuit of art and literature, rather than an accidental aesthetic result of their physical presence alongside one another in art and antiquarian publications of the time. I also show that the reception of the painted vases that Hamilton collected when he was resident in Naples (1764–1800) was the product of a long and complex relationship between the antiquarian tradition and socio-cultural discourses over the practices of collecting and exhibiting taste before and after 1800

Triacylglycerols identification in archaeological organic residues by Soft Ionization- Mass Spectrometry techniques

The reconstruction of the pharmacological and cosmetic practices of our ancestors is an important topic in the archaeological investigation. Drugs and cosmetics are important sources of information not only because they are a matter of daily life, but also because their social, cultural and economical implications. Under this light, the organic residues preserved in potsherds and various vessels may deliver key elements in elucidating our history. Due to chemical complexity of such organic residues, accurate and powerful analytical chemical techniques are required. The present work focuses on the application of different mass spectrometry approaches, mainly based on soft ionization techniques, aiming to reconstruct the original material used for the formulation of drugs, ointments and cosmetics in the past, through the identification of lipid fractions of organic residues found in archaeological artefacts. In order to cover in detail this analytical challenge, samples from different ages and location were studied. In particular, we investigated the organic residues found in vessels having the well known shape of kohl container from the ancient cities of Assiut (Egypt, Middle Kingdom), beehive remains from the Etruscan site of Forcello (Italy, 500-480 B.C) and various ointments of late monastic provenance (Spain, XIV- XVII A.C.) The first goal of the research was to asses and validate a soft ionization - mass spectrometry approach for recognizing the original materials in archaeological residues by triacylglycerols (TAGs) identification. In fact, despite the chemotaxonomic potential of TAGs in determining the origin of lipid substances, few are the related applications reported in literature. Therefore, we performed a comparative study on the TAGs distributions found in the archaeological residues and in different natural lipid-containing materials used as references. Thanks to the use of recently introduced non-porous core-particles stationary phases , we have been able to develop a new liquid chromatographic – mass spectrometry method capable to resolve complex lipid mixtures in very short time. The very good chromatographic performances prevented co-elution and enabled the use of database containing more than 500 TAGs molecular formula for the research of TAGs in the samples. Two different ionization sources were employed (APCI and ESI) and their performance were compared. In particular, their use appeared complementary, due to their different sensitivity against unsaturated TAGs. Analysis were carried out also by GC-MS (with an electron impact ionization) which is currently the most employed technique for the characterization of lipids in archaeological residues. A new derivatization procedure based on the use of switchable polarity solvents (SPS) was tested with the aim to identify specific conditions for ancient residues treatment. In fact, due to general scarcity of archaeological residues for the analysis and the need of performing a broad range of different characterizations on the same material, the development of new methods capable to separate all the different components in few steps, minimizing the loss of material, is particularly important. The analysis carried on the historical ointments residues gave us the possibility to evaluate the performance of the methods in a unprecedented and controlled aging experiment. This was possible thanks to the presence of latin label on the vessels, indicating the original recipes adopted to prepare the ointments, retrieved in extraordinary detail from historical bibliographic sources. This study gave us also the possibility to gain important indication for reconstructing the pathways of degradation of lipid materials in complex compositions. Hydrolysis and oxidation products were found as predominant fraction in the residues. Nonetheless, the original lipid material were still recognizable thanks to the use of LC-MS, because the surviving TAGs were very selectively separated from the other components and identified. Artificial aging treatments on TAG standards and the reference material showed the absence of inter-conversion phenomena from saturated to unsaturated TAGs confirming the validity of TAGs as biomarkers. Noteworthy, the characterizations of the lipid components of the historical ointments obtained by LC-MS were in agreement with those obtained by the application of GC-MS and other analytical techniques generally adopted in the study of the archaeological residues (such as FTIR). Consistency of the TAG profiling approach by LC-MS in recognizing the original lipid materials was also acknowledged through a large scale round robin test involving eleven laboratory with consolidate experience in the analysis of archeological objects. In particular, we showed as LC-MS is the most powerful technique in determining the origin of oily and fatty substances. At the same time, the characterisation of these ointments enabled us to give precious contributions in the study of an important historical period, in which the monastic pharmaceutical practices were changing from a classical “humoral medicine” to the application of the experimental approach. Nice results were obtained also by analyzing the khol remains from the ancient Egyptian city of Assiut. Thanks to the complementary use of information regarding TAG distributions and the structural feature of some specific TAGs, we have been able to distinguish vegetable oil from animal fat. In some cases, we have been also able to identify very precisely the provenance of the fatty materials. Very difficult was instead the characterisation of beehive remains found in the Etruscan site of Forcello, which is thought to be one of the first archaeological evidences of beekeeping practice prior to the classical age. The problems were related probably to contaminations of the surface, due to the firing process encountered by the archaeological site after his apogee (fifth century BC)

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