Lydia Avlonitou

Ce travail de these a pour objectif d’etudier l’emploi des motifs geometriques, vegetaux ou empruntes a l’architecture, dans le decor peint des monuments funeraires de Macedoine antique. Il s’agit d’une approche integrale qui est effectuee a travers la documentation et l’analyse stylistique, technique et physico-chimique des motifs tels qu’ils apparaissent dans un riche corpus de soixante-huit monuments dates de l’epoque hellenistique et le debut de l’epoque romaine. La these est organisee en trois parties. La premiere partie presente la documentation des motifs rencontres, leur occurrence dans les monuments avec des observations sur le rendu, les combinaisons chromatiques et les pigments employes. Cette partie comprend une etude comparative des motifs dans l’art de l’antiquite en Grece et ailleurs, et des commentaires sur l’origine et le symbolisme des motifs et leur transposition de la realite ou de l’architecture dans la peinture.La deuxieme partie concerne l’etude archeometrique...

Presented are the results of a five year archaeological
and archaeometrical research concerning the Hellenistic funerary monuments of ancient Macedonia. The study was conducted in the framework of the NARNIA ITN Project, and within the broader context of an interdisciplinary doctoral thesis at the Paris Nanterre University (France).
The tombs, located in the area between Makrygialos in the SW and the outskirts of Drama and Kavala in the NE, are dated in the last quarter of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd c. BC. One of the research objectives was to make a valid contribution to the study of the vegetal, geometric and architectural motifs, usually perceived as secondary elements
despite their common presence in the tombs decoration. More than 270 motifs varying from simple palmettes and wave patterns to ornate scroll ornaments and complicate meanders, have been thoroughly archived,
described and compared with themes of other wall paintings but also of mosaics and pottery decoration.
These reoccur in the funerary decor in Macedonia, Magna Grecia, Thrace, Alexandreia and elsewhere. They provide information concerning the artistic and technical progress in this area and suggest reciprocal
influences in the ancient world. Moreover, an archaeometrical investigation aimed at identifying the inorganic and organic components of the wall paintings was performed by means of various analytical techniques. In summary, the most commonly identified materials are red and yellow ochre, calcite, cinnabar and Egyptian blue, while realgar, orpiment and green earth were also used, but sparingly. These results are consistent with previous technological studies of Macedonian paintings and reveal the great variety of hues and raw materials that comprise the ancient painter’s palette. As for the organic binders, the detection
and identification of proteinaceous and saccharide materials in the paint and/or preparation layers indicate the use of a secco painting technique.

The funerary monuments located in the area of ancient Macedonia (Northern Greece) form a remarkable source of evidence on late Classical and Hellenistic painting. In the framework of the NARNIA ITN Project, an integrating approach to the study of the painted decoration of these tombs, combining archaeological and archaeometrical research is being conducted. Various analytical techniques are used for the identification of the inorganic and organic components of the wall paintings, in order to reveal the pigments and the binding media, and suggest the techniques used for the realisation of the painting.

Abstract The funerary monuments located in the area of ancient Macedonia (Northern Greece), namely the monumental Macedonian tombs, as well as the decorated chamber and cist tombs form a remarkable source of evidence about late Classical and Hellenistic painting. They preserve simple or more elaborate compositions executed with the employment of techniques developed at the end of the 5th and during the 4th centuries BCE. In the framework of the NARNIA Project, an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the painted decoration of these tombs was applied combining archaeological research and archaeometric techniques of material study and characterisation. Different analytical techniques have been used in order to determine the techniques and materials employed in the wall paintings in several funerary structures. Specifically, the surface and stratigraphy of the painting were examined with optical microscopy, polarised light microscopy (PLM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), while the chemical composition of the inorganic materials was determined through the application of micro-X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (μ-XRF), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Furthermore an investigation of the use of Egyptian blue in the decoration of selected monuments has been conducted through the in situ application of the non-invasive technique which combines visible induced luminescence (VIL) infrared imaging. In the course of this study, the information obtained through the analysis and the review of the literature has revealed the pigments employed in the painted decoration of eighteen funeral monuments. The mainly inorganic colouring materials vary from natural, such as hematite and goethite, calcite and carbon black, to the synthetic Egyptian blue. The coloured arsenal employed by the ancient painters is further enriched by other minerals, such as the red cinnabar and realgar, as well as an arsenic based yellow pigment. Green earth was also used, despite the availability of copper based green minerals. Lastly, the presence of Egyptian blue in the monuments has provided invaluable information regarding the spatial distribution of the pigment and allowed a further comprehension of the decorative motifs.

This study focuses especially on vegetal and geometric motifs found in funerary monuments located in the area of ancient Macedonia (Northern Greece). The aim is to gather and compare these motifs, determine the techniques and materials used and trace the different artistic trends as much as the reciprocal influences in the ancient world. The ultimate goal is a useful contribution in the archaeological and archaeometrical research in Macedonia.

The present thesis belongs to the wide field of archaeometry and specifically concerns the study of prehistoric pottery through physicochemical methods of analysis. The main objective was the determination of the chemical composition of twenty ceramic fragments (sherds) in total, from the Neolithic settlement of Makrygialos (Pieria, Greece). The thesis consists of two main parts. The first, theoretical, part includes chapters 1, 2, and 3. The first chapter concerns the archaeological data of the sherds and presents the prehistoric settlement in question. Furthermore, there is information about the regional pottery and the ancient ceramic technology in general. The second chapter is an introduction to archaeometry and deals with the relation between archaeology and sciences. It also refers to the question of sampling and focuses on the selection criteria of the appropriate analytical method. Chapter three concerns the physicochemical methods that were used for the analysis of the sherds, concentrating in principals, instrumentation, sample preparation and result evaluation methodology for each one and concluding to a bibliographic research of their applications on ceramic samples. The second, experimental, part consists of chapters 4, 5 and 6. In chapter four the sherds are classified in five groups, on the basis of the location they were found in the site during excavation. Several digital pictures of the objects are taken and their color is specified (code Munsell) via a spectrophotometer. Next, a stereomicroscope was used to enhance surface observation, while, connected to a PC, snapshots of details are taken. Chapter five deals with the analytical process and includes sampling preparation and analysis, results and related observations. The multi-elemental analytical methods that were used are Scanning Electron Microscopy in combination with Energy Dispersive Spectrometry (SEM – EDS), Micro Χ- Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (μ-XRF) and Χ- Ray Diffraction Spectrometry (XRD). As long as for the application of XRD, powdering of a small part of the sample is requisite, three samples were re-analysed with μ-XRF in powder form. Furthermore, the results of a precedent petrographical analysis of thin sections in polarising microscope, applied to most of the samples in the past were also included. In the final chapter, the results of the various techniques are gathered and organised, via statistical analysis, in PCA diagrams (Principal Component Analysis). It is then revealed that the sherds tend to group, according to their chemical composition, in a way in accordance to the classification by their exact finding location in the site during excavation. This chapter also includes the results and the thesis is completed with four appendices. The first three sum up the pictures of the sherds that were taken via digital camera, stereomicroscope and scanning electron microscope, while the last appendix gathers the diffract graph from the XRD analysis.