About thirty kilometres south-east of Rome, in the territory of ancient Aricia, the volcanic lake of Nemi, on its northern shore, preserves the vestiges of a Roman Republican sanctuary dedicated to the goddess of the woods: Diana Nemorensis. Archaeological excavations conducted around the temple have brought to light, between 2009 and 2020, a conspicuous number of architectural terracottas, some of them polychromatic, pertaining to the wooden roof of the sacred building. As part of a PhD project aimed at the diachronic reconstruction of the decorative roof systems of the Temple, an archaeometric study of some of the most representative architectural elements was initiated in order to investigate aspects of their production. Scientific interest in architectural terracottas from the Roman Republican period is in fact rather recent and the bibliography on the subject is very limited. In the preliminary phase of the archaeometric investigations, non-invasive and micro-invasive analyses were performed on a significant number of terracotta samples using interconnected analytical techniques. Several chemical-physical characterization analyses were performed on the small fragments taken from each sample: Optical Microscopy, X-Ray Diffractometry (XRD), XRF Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). Analyses in orthogonal section of the sample allow the qualitative identification of microcrystalline phases, crystals of neoformation (occurring during firing) and aggregates present in the mixture; the presence of vacuoles, cracks, colour variations, grain size, provides information on processing and firing. The characterization of the crystal lattices of the mineralogical phases is determined by XRD analysis, which is able to obtain quantitative compositional information. FT-IR analysis provides information for the characterization of ceramic pastes, while XRF has been proved useful in identifying pigments present on polychrome samples. The analyses conducted on the ceramic pastes have been treated statistically in order to obtain a visualization of the variance of the sample dataset. Archaeological information in connection with archaeometric data available in the literature is patchy and scarce on the production and composition of architectural terracotta of any period. Therefore, an innovative aspect of this research is the interdisciplinary approach using diagnostic instruments to obtain a compositional chemical dataset that is statistically processed in order to establish compositional materials, manufacturing technology, places of supply and connections to communication/transport and trade circuits of unprocessed materials and/or pottery.
Archeometric Study on architectural terracottas from the Temple of Diana Nemorensis (Lazio, Italy): preliminary results / D'Angelo, Giulia; Di Girolami, Giuseppe; Ferrante, Marco; Cinaglia, Paolo; Potenza, Antonella; Falcone, Francesca. - (2023). (Intervento presentato al convegno XII Congresso Nazionale AIAR tenutosi a Messina).
Archeometric Study on architectural terracottas from the Temple of Diana Nemorensis (Lazio, Italy): preliminary results
D'Angelo, Giulia
Primo
;
2023
Abstract
About thirty kilometres south-east of Rome, in the territory of ancient Aricia, the volcanic lake of Nemi, on its northern shore, preserves the vestiges of a Roman Republican sanctuary dedicated to the goddess of the woods: Diana Nemorensis. Archaeological excavations conducted around the temple have brought to light, between 2009 and 2020, a conspicuous number of architectural terracottas, some of them polychromatic, pertaining to the wooden roof of the sacred building. As part of a PhD project aimed at the diachronic reconstruction of the decorative roof systems of the Temple, an archaeometric study of some of the most representative architectural elements was initiated in order to investigate aspects of their production. Scientific interest in architectural terracottas from the Roman Republican period is in fact rather recent and the bibliography on the subject is very limited. In the preliminary phase of the archaeometric investigations, non-invasive and micro-invasive analyses were performed on a significant number of terracotta samples using interconnected analytical techniques. Several chemical-physical characterization analyses were performed on the small fragments taken from each sample: Optical Microscopy, X-Ray Diffractometry (XRD), XRF Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). Analyses in orthogonal section of the sample allow the qualitative identification of microcrystalline phases, crystals of neoformation (occurring during firing) and aggregates present in the mixture; the presence of vacuoles, cracks, colour variations, grain size, provides information on processing and firing. The characterization of the crystal lattices of the mineralogical phases is determined by XRD analysis, which is able to obtain quantitative compositional information. FT-IR analysis provides information for the characterization of ceramic pastes, while XRF has been proved useful in identifying pigments present on polychrome samples. The analyses conducted on the ceramic pastes have been treated statistically in order to obtain a visualization of the variance of the sample dataset. Archaeological information in connection with archaeometric data available in the literature is patchy and scarce on the production and composition of architectural terracotta of any period. Therefore, an innovative aspect of this research is the interdisciplinary approach using diagnostic instruments to obtain a compositional chemical dataset that is statistically processed in order to establish compositional materials, manufacturing technology, places of supply and connections to communication/transport and trade circuits of unprocessed materials and/or pottery.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
