Callewaert, Maxime ; Lamy, Véronique; Dumora, César; Mathis, François; Strivay, David; Calvo del Castillo, Helena; Thiaudière, Cyril; Besson, Corinne; Verbanck-Piérard, A, Les ors hellénistiques et romains de Mariemont. II. Matériaux, techniques et savoir-faire des orfèvres antiques, Les Cahiers de Mariemont 40, 2016, p.133-147.

The forgery of original works of art and fraudulent dealing of counterfeits have been a problem ever since ancient times; a global challenge at the same level with trafficking of weapons, drugs, and human beings. The AUTHENTICO project, financed by the European Commission, DG Research, under the 6th Framework Programme, proposed multidisciplinary research to face this problem and provide a cost-effective science, technology and culture-based strategy for the authentication of movable cultural patrimony, in particular of metal artefacts (precious and non-precious). The Consortium consisted of ten partners from eight countries: Belgium (EJTN GEIE), the Czech Republic (EDU-ART), Egypt (CULTNAT), France (C2RMF), Italy (CNR-IFAC, CSP, CR-SBAT), Poland (UMK), Tajikistan (SODESCO) and the United Kingdom (UCL IoA), involving research centres, academia, museums, conservation services, superintendencies, and SMEs. Direct support and interaction from Law Enforcement Agencies – the Italian Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale – and from Civil Protection representatives expanded and increased the validity, applicability and usefulness of the project. The project started in June 2007, for a total duration of 30 months, specifically aiming to: assess an innovative, shared and international protocol, for a set of non-invasive and non destructive authentication techniques and procedures on movable metal artefacts, integrating different approaches: experienced evaluation of the artefacts on the historical and morphological sides, description of manufacturing techniques and analysis of material composition with state-of-the-art diagnostic technologies, commonly used for the study of modern technological materials and practically never used for the study of ancient materials; develop portable instruments, integrating micro-topography performed with portable optical instruments, elemental analysis based on Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy and electronic-nose technology for the detection of selective molecular markers, for a simplified and non-invasive set of analyses and diagnostics to be carried out in situ, changing the perspective of authentication procedures for valuable objects, masterpieces, and large museum collections.

Examples of analyticl studies of jewellery

In this introduction to volume 33 of ArcheoSciences, we provide a brief overview of the use and abuse of gold over time, and its different aspects, from the mine to the objects, their use, analysis, and restoration. For this purpose, we focus on the papers presented in this volume, which originate from the Workshop AURUM: authentication and analysis of goldwork, organised under the auspices of the EU-DG Research funded project AUTHENTICO. The main aim of this project was to develop tools and expertise for law enforcement agencies to combat illicit trade in antiquities and to fight fraud and forgeries; to do so requires an understanding of the diversity of the cultural, technical and material manifestations of gold artefacts, and their very specific combinations and expressions. Some of the scholarly foundations of this endeavour are illustrated by the selection of the 55 papers, arranged in five topical sections, which are introduced in this text.

A fibula with a lion and a pair of cluster earrings from the collection of the Florence National Museum of Archaeology, attributed to the Etruscans and said to originate from Populonia but suspected to be modern productions, were studied in the framework of the European project AUTHENTICO. They were compared to genuine objects from this same collection and from the collection of the National Museums Scotland. The study was carried out in situ in Florence with a stereomicroscope equipped with a digital camera, a handheld XRF spectrometer, and the portable LIPS prototype developed by AUTHENTICO. Some objects were studied with SEM and X-radiography. The aim of the study was to show that portable techniques of examination and analysis provide information on gold jewellery that allow the differentiation of modern and ancient productions.

The thesis deals with the jewellery of the so-called Lydian Treasure. In particular, it is concentrated on study, sort, description and analysis of the chosen objects on the basis of their manufacturing and decorating techniques, used materials and depicted motifs.

The countries covered in this section include: Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Yemen. See also the two specialized theme bibliographies and the General/Miscellaneous bibliography as they also contain reports dealing with these countries.

The site of Caltagirone is one of the major production center of pottery in Sicily and southern Italy, and its activity is attested since Neolithic period and is still a vivid tradition. From the specifics requirements of master craftsman to individuate the relation between the cooking process and the color of their artifacts, a project based on the study of this two parameters correlations is developed. In order to create ceramic specimens with a composition typical of the area of interest, clay were sampled in the quarry of Monte San Giorgio and in the area of Lazzaretto (Conadomini furnace). The sand used as inert was sampled from the Monte Stagno quarry; all the sites were chooses following the indications of the major ceramists of Caltagirone. In this work we present the results from the color specification of two types of mixture that characterize the Calatina production used by ceramicists to obtain, respectively, ceramics commonly used and most valuable artifacts. The specimens were subjected to cooking varying the maximum temperature from 400 °C to 1200°C and then to color measurements with spectrophotometric method recording the trend of the spectral reflectance factor and the values of CIELAB colorimetric space. The color differences were calculated in reference to the sample before cooking, settled "raw". The results obtained represent a set of objective data on color changes of ceramic specimens due to the different cooking conditions and they gave precise information for the continuation of research. The study also provides to cross the colorimetric results with those obtained by X-ray diffraction techniques. This is useful to identify, for each thermal processes, the mineralogical phases that may be responsible of the color differences measured.