Ancient Romans took many skills from their empire but developed them in original forms giving models for future developments in Europe and Middle East. The chief Roman innovation in building technology was the opus coementicium that... more
Ancient Romans took many skills from their empire but developed them in original forms giving models for future developments in Europe and Middle East. The chief Roman innovation in building technology was the opus coementicium that allowed to build great domes like Pantheon in Rome and thermal halls, but the structure was incrusted with marbles, stuccos and painted to give a luxury look, while floors were covered with mosaics. Roads, aqueducts and ports gave a great efficiency to the vast empire, only comparable with modern times
Elaiussa Sebaste (present-day Ayaş-Mersin, Turkey), in ancient Rough Cilicia, was one of the most important trade-ports of the eastern Mediterranean active from the late Hellenistic age to the early Byzantine period. The investigations... more
Elaiussa Sebaste (present-day Ayaş-Mersin, Turkey), in ancient Rough Cilicia, was one of the most important trade-ports of the eastern Mediterranean active from the late Hellenistic age to the early Byzantine period. The investigations carried out in 2012 & 2013 have the scope through a multidisciplinary approach to the port system to define and deepen the knowledge of the processes of development and evolution of the port basins, and furthermore to complete the lack of knowledge on the sea area facing the site and to deepen the historical knowledge of the coastal morphology and topography, of the ports and anchorages of the city and of the shipwrecks in the coastal area in front of the site.
Detailed analytical work based on mobile Raman microspectroscopy has been performed on a mortuary assemblage, comprising a group of 59 stone artifacts (vessels, implements and figurines) excavated in one of the richest burial sites in... more
Detailed analytical work based on mobile Raman microspectroscopy has been performed on a mortuary assemblage, comprising a group of 59 stone artifacts (vessels, implements and figurines) excavated in one of the richest burial sites in south-central Crete, Tholos tomb P at the Minoan site of Porti (ca. 2700–1700 BCE).
Mineral identification was possible for over half of the objects examined and the results expand our understanding, originally obtained on the basis of visual and microscopic characterization of the objects. Patterns of variability in the stones investigated are correlated with the typological repertoire of the final products and compared with data from the neighboring site of Apesokari; further inferences on craft specialization issues are finally drawn. In all, the data obtained lead us to suggest that stone vessel manufacture at Porti was predominantly focused on the exploitation of local softstone outcrops. This hypothesis agrees with the current knowledge concerning the geological formation of the Asterousia area, on the northern fringes of which the site of Porti is located. In parallel, the capacity of mobile Raman microspectrometry to contribute to stone object characterization as regards their mineral composition is discussed along with advantages and limitations of the methodology followed. Raman analysis is preformed quickly, non-invasively, directly on the object and over several spots across its surface for probing heterogeneous mineral distributions. The mobile spectrometer permits measurements to be conducted on location, namely within the museum study facilities. A major limitation with respect to obtaining clean analytical information resulted from strong fluorescence emission observed in some of the measurements, which interfered with the Raman scattering signal. These emissions were attributed to organic materials present on the stone surface either as environmental contamination or as a result of previous, often undocumented, conservation treatments. Finally, the need to collect and thoroughly characterize local stone outcrops as well as archaeological stone objects has become evident and building a representative Raman spectral database will certainly facilitate future studies.
