László E. Aradi

László E. Aradi is a geologist at the National Institute of Archaeology, Hungarian National Museum Public Collection Centre. He has worked with Raman microspectroscopy and its applications to wide fields of science for 10 years now. He is currently working in the Raman and FTIR lab of the National Institute of Archaeology, where his current research is focused on the study of archaeological cultural heritage.

ABSTRACT

Expanding SEM analyses with spectroscopic methods: study of painted surfaces in the Archaeometry Laboratory of the National Institute of Archaeology (Hungarian National Museum Public Collection Centre)

László E. Aradi¹, Kristóf Fehér¹, and Gábor Virágos²

¹ Archaeometry Laboratory, National Institute of Archaeology, Hungarian National Museum Public Collection Centre, Budapest, Hungary

² National Institute of Archaeology, Hungarian National Museum Public Collection Centre, Budapest, Hungary

The Archaeometry Laboratory of the National Institute of Archaeology (Hungarian National Museum Public Collection Centre) acquired four new state-of-the-art instruments to serve the conservation and scientific study of both the collection of the museum and the newly gathered artefacts from current excavations. A JEOL JSM-IT510/LA electron microscope is complemented by a Bruker M4 Tornado AMICS micro-XRF spectrometer, a Renishaw inVia Qontor Raman microspectrometer and a Bruker Lumos II FTIR spectrometer. In this study we aim to present our methodology and results on various painted artefacts and archaeological samples, gathered using the complex instrumentation available in our laboratory. Most of our methods are non-contact and non-destructive, which is essential while working on artworks and cultural heritage pieces.

Most of the analysed painted archaeological samples are ceramics. The analyses of pigments on the ceramics’ surfaces are essential to understand how artisans engaged with the material world from prehistoric through medieval times and how various cultural and natural processes influenced their decisions in material culture production. In our selected case studies, we will present how additional spectroscopic measurements can aid in the determination of various earth pigments and components of enamels and glazes in SEM.

We also present the results of our analysis of mural paintings from a recently discovered medieval monastery in Tomajmonostora. The painting is recovered from centimetres-sized pieces of plaster, which contain several layers. Identifying the complex assemblage of pigments used on these mural paintings required utilising all four instruments in our laboratory. By identifying various pigments in similarly coloured plasters (e.g., ultramarine, green-earth and Cu-carbonates in the blue-greens; red-earth and Pb-oxides in the reds) we aim to reconstruct the paintings of different eras of this short-lived monastery.