Petrographic-Mineralogical Characterization of Archaeological Materials from “Casa di Diana” Mithraeum Sited in the Open Museum of Ostia Antica

Mithraea, religious Roman buildings, are very common in Italian archeological sites. There are sixteen in Ostia Antica (Rome, Italy)The poor state of conservation, due to the intrinsic environmental conditions, characterized them: they consist of open-air museums and caves simultaneously. These places of worship are characterized by the presence of heterogeneous materials, such as wall building materials (bricks and mortars) and others used for furnishings and fittings. This increases the risk of accelerated damage because the materials ‘rheology is different. Here, a full petrographic-mineralogical characterization with polarized light microscopy (PLM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope with energy dispersive X-ray (SEM-EDS) and isotopic analysis (δ13C, δ18O) is carried out on materials like travertine, marble, pumice, ceramic, and wall-building materials in “Casa di Diana” Mithraeum (Ostia Antica). Their characterization gives provenance information as well as conservation and restoration purposes. The prevalence of siliciclastic or carbonate components discriminates between red and yellow bricks, as well as different textures and minerals in the aggregate of the red ones. The mortars are typically pozzolanic, and the aggregate is mostly made up of black and red pozzolanic clasts. In the altar, apse, and aedicule, which constitute the principal place of the Mithraeum, a variety of materials used for the ornamental purpose are represented by pumices, travertine, marble, and limestone. The altar material, catalogued as marble, resulted in being a limestone coated with a white pigment.This work has been partially supported by the DEMORA (Grant No. PID2020-113391GB-I00) projects funded by the Spanish Agency for Research AEI (MINEICO/FEDER-UE). The authors wish to acknowledge professional support of the Interdisciplinary Thematic Platform from CSIC Open Heritage: Research and Society (PTI-PAIS)

Multi-scale analysis of lung computed tomography images

A computer-aided detection (CAD) system for the identification of lung internal nodules in low-dose multi-detector helical Computed Tomography (CT) images was developed in the framework of the MAGIC-5 project. The three modules of our lung CAD system, a segmentation algorithm for lung internal region identification, a multi-scale dot-enhancement filter for nodule candidate selection and a multi-scale neural technique for false positive finding reduction, are described. The results obtained on a dataset of low-dose and thin-slice CT scans are shown in terms of free response receiver operating characteristic (FROC) curves and discussed.Comment: 18 pages, 12 low-resolution figure

87SR/86SR, 18O/16O AND 13C/12C ISOTOPIC RATIOS IN PROVENANCE DETERMINATION OF CLASSICAL MARBLES: THE CASE OF QUARRIES DISCRIMINATION OF THASOS ISLAND.

POSTER PRESENTATO AL CONVEGNO "ARCHAEOMETRY 2004", ZARAGOZA, MAY 3-7,200

THE HISTORY OF THE MEDIEVAL OPEN SETTLEMENT OF STARE MIASTO (CIVITAS ANTIQUA) AT KALISZ (GREATER POLAND) TRACKED BY ISOTOPE DATING METHODOLOGY

The main results achieved by the present research are summarized as follows: 1) Two distinct Early Middle Ages occupation phases in the most elevated area of the Kalisz-Stare Miasto settlement have been distinguished and their timing assessed by isotope dating. 2) A significant hiatus between the two occupation phases could indicate abandonment or a change of function of the higher parts of stare Miasto. 3) The transition from the first, unmanaged Stare Miasto village to a proto-urban settlement took place over some 400 years. During this time interval, however, the occupation appears to have been confined to the lower parts of the eminence (e.g. trench II, not discussed here). 4) The 14C readings have confirmed that layers exposed in trenches X and XII were unaffected by reworking and therefore the excavated bones and wood fragments refer to the Christian cemetery of the most recent (cal. A.D. 1165-1280) Early Middle Ages occupation phase

The role of water-rock ratio and temperature in the isotopic alteration of flysch rock in the Tolfa Mountain mining district (Latium, Central Italy)

Carbon and oxygen isotope analyses have been performed on calcium carbonate samples from flysch rocks collected in the south of Tolfa and Allumiere villages (Central Italy). Large variation it) delta(18)O occurs from values around +28 per mil (SMOW), typical of marine carbonates, down to values of about +9 per mil (SMOW). The lower values are measured on samples collected close to phanerocrystalline carbonate deposits outcropping in the area and interpreted as part of a hydrothermal vein system. delta(13)C does not show large variation, and, aside from a few outliers, falls within a range of 0 and +2 per mil (PDB). Similar carbon and oxygen isotope spatial relationships between the flysch country rocks and the phanerocrystalline carbonate deposits were determined in a previous study by FERRINI & MASI (1987), who interpreted the O-18 depletion as due to interaction of the host rock with an aqueous fluid at hydrothermal temperatures below 250degreesC and with a water to rock ratio progressively increasing toward the carbonate vein. The combined results indicate that hydrothermal fluid temperature largely regulates oxygen isotope variation (and possibly the carbon and oxygen deltas co-variation) with respect to the variation of the water to rock ratio