A multi-analytical study of egyptian funerary artifacts from three portuguese museum collections

A diachronic, multi-analytical approach combining EDXRF, µFTIR, µRaman, SEM-EDS, and Py-GC/MS has been adopted with the aim to study for the first time the painting materials used to decorate Egyptian funerary masks and sarcophagi ranging from the Late Period to the Roman Period and stored in the Archaeological National Museum (MNA) and the Carmo Archaeological Museum (MAC) of Lisbon and the Natural History Museum of the University in Oporto (MNH-FCUP). Results indicate that yellow and red ochres, realgar, cinnabar, Egyptian blue, and Egyptian green were used as pigments while chalk served as the preparatory layer. Over the 1000-year time-line of the studied artifacts, the palette remained remarkably consistent with previous findings as exemplified by cinnabar being used for red pigments in samples only dated after the Ptolemaic period. The presence of Sn in Egyptian blue and Egyptian green pigments used in one sample sug-gests the use of recycled bronze scraps during pigment production. Black pigments in two Late Period masks were found to be produced by mixing Egyptian blue with red ochre suggesting either a hitherto unknown method for production of purple pigments in the Egyptian palette or, alterna-tively, an attempt to create a specific hue or shade of dark brown or black. The results of this study contribute to further expand the database of Ancient Egyptian painting materials while at the same time helping to valorize three important Egyptian collections in Portugal

Reduced conditioned fear response in mice that lack Dlx1 and show subtype-specific loss of interneurons

The inhibitory GABAergic system has been implicated in multiple neuropsychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia and autism. The Dlx homeobox transcription factor family is essential for development and function of GABAergic interneurons. Mice lacking the Dlx1 gene have postnatal subtype-specific loss of interneurons and reduced IPSCs in their cortex and hippocampus. To ascertain consequences of these changes in the GABAergic system, we performed a battery of behavioral assays on the Dlx1 mutant mice, including zero maze, open field, locomotor activity, food intake, rotarod, tail suspension, fear conditioning assays (context and trace), prepulse inhibition, and working memory related tasks (spontaneous alteration task and spatial working memory task). Dlx1 mutant mice displayed elevated activity levels in open field, locomotor activity, and tail suspension tests. These mice also showed deficits in contextual and trace fear conditioning, and possibly in prepulse inhibition. Their learning deficits were not global, as the mutant mice did not differ from the wild-type controls in tests of working memory. Our findings demonstrate a critical role for the Dlx1 gene, and likely the subclasses of interneurons that are affected by the lack of this gene, in behavioral inhibition and associative fear learning. These observations support the involvement of particular components of the GABAergic system in specific behavioral phenotypes related to complex neuropsychiatric diseases