Applicazioni innovative di procedure sperimentali a raggi X per lo studio di reperti archeologici di scavo

The present thesis is the result of a close collaboration with the Sovrintendenza Speciale dei Beni Archeologici di Roma (SSBAR), who had raised the issue of the study of archaeological excavation, prior to the conservation and restoration. The modus operandi can be shared into three steps. First, a working procedure was defined. The working procedure is the application of analytical techniques to X-ray radiography first, and then to the digital image processing, X-ray fluorescence and diffraction In the second step, we made changes and improvements to the utilised instrumentation. For radiography experiment, it was realised a radiographic bench, equipped with an experimental X-ray generator whose management program in VB was written on my own (.net language). For the instrumentation utilised for XRF, it was achieved an handling system XYZ, equipped with a tracking system that allows to document the measuring point owing to a portable microscope. Concerning the diffraction instrumentation, a reading system of the detector of type IP diffractometer was improved and upgraded. Finally, the procedure was applied on different types of findings provided by the superintendent, using the previously described instrumentation. We analyzed about 50 soil blocks from Crustumerium (IX sec. BC) containing iron- and copper alloy- metallic objects, about one hundred Roman coins (from 50 BC) from excavations of the Palatine Hill in Rome, those Pompeii Porta Stabia and those of the Villa Medici in Rome, two Etruscan mirrors and finally the Fragments necklace from Khirbet al-Batrawi (Jordan) (III millennium BC.) The results were presented in several national and international conferences, and they were also used by restorers and archaeologists of supervision in order to decide the best conservative intervention. In some cases, it was chosen not to proceed with the restoration, because it would have caused an irreversible loss of information already extracted with the procedure.