Dennis Braekmans

Elemental and Isotopic Analysis of Ancient Ceramics and Glass

The specific purpose of the chemical investigation of ancient pottery and glass artifacts is the study of their provenance, and thus of the exchange and trade of whole objects or raw materials. Chemical analysis for major and trace elements is particularly useful in defining the raw materials used for the manufacture of ceramics and comparing this fingerprint to locally known clay resources. A combination of such chemical fingerprinting with petrographical and mineralogical analysis techniques provides a full characterization of ceramic manufacturing. In the study of glass and other vitreous materials, elemental analysis is a powerful technique to identify technological choices in glass manufacture, specifically to characterize the mixture of raw materials used. To be able to provenance glassmaking from sand and flux, isotopic analysis is currently the prime technique available.

Egyptian sculptures from Imperial Rome : Non-destructive characterization of granitoid statues through macroscopic methodologies and in situ XRF analysis

Aegyptiaca-like Domitian’s obelisk is now decorating Bernini’s fountain on Piazza Navona or the Egyptian lions flanking Michelangelo’s stairs towards the Capitol figure prominently amidst Rome’s cultural heritage. Motivations for the import, contextualization, and copying of these objects during the Imperial Roman period are as heavily debated as they are ill understood. Provenance determination plays an important role in these discussions in terms of a (supposed) dichotomy between Egyptian (real) versus egyptianising (copy) but has only been applied stylistically and never been tested analytically. A scientific characterization of the materials themselves is even lacking altogether, as is an investigation into the cultural and symbolic meaning of the materials used. This paper is a first attempt to address these important lacunae on the basis of an explorative study of a selected sample of Egyptian statues from Rome. The identification and provenance attribution of the materials used for these statues are often problematic due to their relatively fine-grained nature and dark color. Therefore, a full non-destructive analysis of Egyptian statues in dark-colored rocks is presented in this study, with the stones evaluated by macroscopic examination and handheld X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis. The implemented methodology has allowed a distinction between greywacke and several varieties of granitoid rocks. In order to evaluate the potential for source attribution, a comparison was made between the results of our analyses and geochemical data for several granitoid rocks from Egypt. This has suggested Aswan as most likely source. The results presented here indicate that handheld XRF analysis can be used for the assessment of compositional variability in and potentially for the provenance of granitoid rocks, provided that a fine-grained area of the material can be measured on multiple locations, and if these values can be assessed on (in)consistencies with other published reference materials.

Mapping Regional Ceramic Fabrics in Sagalassos (SW-Turkey), Dating from 500 BC–700 AD

Since the start of the excavations at Sagalassos in 1990, interdisciplinary research has been carried out with the purpose of reconstructing the economic history of the site. One of the most important finds was the discovery that Sagalassos was an important regional centre for pottery manufacture from at least the late Hellenistic period into early Byzantine times (Poblome 1999; Degeest 2000). In order to understand regional ceramic production and identify the clay raw materials used, an integrated approach of typological, petrographic and geochemical methods is used in the present study.