The Role of the Student Researcher: Notes from Hadrian’s Wall

Fieldwork carried out for a Masters dissertation examined, through interviews, how well a consultation on the future management of the Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site had been carried out. Unexpected access was granted during a tense and uncertain period for those involved in managing the Site, at least partly because as a student, the author was not affiliated with any of the organisations concerned. This paper will examine the roles and relationships that the student may find him/herself in, in such a situation, and the possible benefits and dangers these bring. It will also look at the student’s privilege of a sustained period to focus on a single topic, often denied to academics. In the case of an MA, this produces relatively quick results and the possibility of contributing to urgent current issues, if students can be persuaded to publish.     

Two Byzantine Albanian icons: a non-destructive archaeometric study

The present work is part of a project aimed at studying the pigments and painting techniques used by Albanian iconographers to produce Byzantine and post-Byzantine icons dating from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries; the state of conservation of these icons was also explored. Inorganic pigments are identified by means of X-ray fluorescence, reflectance spectrophotometry and UV fluorescence analysis. These analysis techniques were performed to discriminate between pigments on the basis of their typical features. Moreover, the study of the optical properties of paintings is of fundamental importance for correct restoration. This work enabled us to recognise the palette used in two artworks by anonymous painters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Only three small samples were taken from the edge and the back of the wooden tables in order to achieve information on preparatory layers. Twelve to fourteen non-destructive measurements were made to characterise the palette used by the two anonymous painters.     

Archaeometric study of natural hydraulic mortars: the case of the Late Roman Villa dell’Oratorio (Florence,Italy)

This paper shows the results of a multidisciplinary study carried out on the mortars from the Late Roman Villa dell’Oratorio (fourth-sixth ad), an aristocratic mansion built in the lower Valdarno (Florence, Italy). Thirty-one bedding mortar and plaster samples were analysed through optical microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, X-ray powder diffraction and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy for determining the chemical, mineralogical and petrographic characteristics, while their main physical properties were measured by geotechnical procedures. The collected data indicates that the analysed mortars are made up of very fine to coarse river sand aggregate mixed with white to yellowish-white natural hydraulic lime binder mainly consisting of mixtures of prevailing calcite and hydraulic compounds. With regard to the origin of the raw materials, the aggregates were recognized to be selected Arno river sands, and the binders are the burning product of a local marly limestone (ex Alberese). Therefore, the mortars of the Late Roman Villa dell’Oratorio are one of the first uses of natural hydraulic lime in the lower Valdarno.     

Expectations of scatter in equivalent-dose distributions when using multi-grain aliquots for OSL dating

In the OSL dating of sediment, the scatter in equivalent dose (D _e) between grains is almost always larger than would be expected due to counting statistics alone. Some scatter may be caused by insufficient (partial) bleaching of some of the grains prior to deposition. In order to date partially bleached sediment, it is essential to estimate the amount of scatter caused by other processes (e.g. grain-to-grain variability in the natural dose rate). Measurements of such scatter are performed at the single-grain level; by contrast, most OSL dating is performed on multi-grain subsamples, for which grain-to-grain scatter is reduced through averaging.