RAMAN MICROSCOPY : THE IDENTIFICATION OF LAPIS LAZULI ON MEDIEVAL POTTERY FRAGMENTS FROM THE SOUTH OF ITALY

Abstract The technique of Raman microscopy has been used to investigate the pigments used in the glazes of fragments of medieval items of pottery dating back to the second half of the 13th century, which were found buried beneath a church in the abandoned village of Castel Fiorentino, near Foggia, in Southern Italy. The research has led to the first identification of lapis lazuli in a blue pigment pottery glaze; the identification was confirmed for six other shards from the same site. The brown—black pigment in these shards could not be identified.

[1]  H. W. Thompson,et al.  Advances in Spectroscopy , 1959 .

[2]  J. Prener,et al.  The Preparation of Ultramarines1 , 1950 .

[3]  Joyce Plesters,et al.  2. Ultramarine Blue, Natural and Artificial , 1966 .

[4]  J. Wagstaff.  FURTHER USES OF BEVA 371 IN THE TREATMENT OF PAINTED SILK PANELS , 1979 .

[5]  R. L. Feller,et al.  Artists' Pigments: A Handbook of Their History and Characteristics, Volume 2 , 1995 .

[6]  Robin J. H. Clark,et al.  Pigment identification on medieval manuscripts by Raman microscopy , 1995 .

[7]  Robin J. H. Clark,et al.  RAMAN MICROSCOPY : APPLICATION TO THE IDENTIFICATION OF PIGMENTS ON MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS , 1995 .

[8]  Christopher De Hamel,et al.  Scribes and Illuminators , 1992 .

[9]  R. Clark,et al.  The resonance Raman spectrum of ultramarine blue , 1975 .

[10]  M. Kurmoo,et al.  On the nature of the sulfur chromophores in ultramarine blue, green, violet, and pink and of the selenium chromophore in ultramarine selenium: characterization of radical anions by electronic and resonance Raman spectroscopy and the determination of their excited-state geometries , 1983 .

[11]  M. L. Curri,et al.  XPS, ICP and DPASV analysis of medieval pottery — Statistical multivariate treatment of data , 1994 .

[12]  R. Withnall,et al.  Non-destructive pigment analysis of artefacts by Raman microscopy , 1992 .

[13]  B. Bulkin,et al.  Chemical Applications of Raman Spectroscopy , 1981 .

[14]  W. Eitel.  The physical chemistry of the silicates , 1954 .

[15]  R. Withnall,et al.  Identification by Raman microscopy and visible reflectance spectroscopy of pigments on an Icelandic manuscript , 1995 .

[16]  P. Rice,et al.  Pottery Analysis: A Sourcebook , 1987 .

[17]  D. Erickson.  Trick of the tongue. A unique mechanism of taste means no substitute for salt. , 1990, Scientific American.

[18]  R. Clark,et al.  Resonance Raman Spectroscopy, and Its Application to Inorganic Chemistry. New Analytical Methods (27) , 1986 .

[19]  C. Cooksey,et al.  Indigo, woad, and Tyrian Purple: important vat dyes from antiquity to the present , 1993 .

[20]  Anna O. Shepard,et al.  Ceramics for the archaeologist , 1958 .