Testing recipes: an experimental approach to paint production processes in Levantine rock art (Spain)

Over more than a century, several proposals have been made on the composition and technical features of the pictorial recipes used by Levantine prehistoric painters. In this paper all these proposals are surveyed and tested through systematic experiments to determine the technical affordance of pigments and binders in different pictorial recipes. Experimental results were then used as independent analytical parameters employed as diagnostic criteria to systematically study an archaeological sample of nine sites located in the Maestrazgo region (Spain) and their surroundings. Results reveal that out of 112 experimental recipes, only 16 afforded the production of paintings technically similar to Levantine rock art.     

Conflictividad capitular y poderes locales en el Cabildo de Manila (1690–1697)

La mayoría de especialistas en la historia de la iglesia de las Filipinas reconocen el gobierno del arzobispo de Manila, fray Felipe Pardo (1677–1689), como uno de los más conflictivos de la historia del archipiélago. Sin embargo, poco o muy poco se ha escrito sobre las actividades políticas y económicas de sus capitulares, particularmente en lo que se refiere a los períodos de sedes vacantes. Frente a la imagen monolítica y triunfante que la historiografía modernista ha proporcionado del discurso tridentino, lo cierto es que hubo grietas, divergencias y conflictos derivados de su confrontación con la realidad local. Los prebendados no constituían un grupo socialmente homogéneo, sino caracterizado por intereses, identidades y lealtades móviles que dependían de contextos políticos y económicos. En este ensayo vamos a analizar las políticas civiles y eclesiásticas de los prebendados del cabildo catedralicio, haciendo especial énfasis en la conflictividad capitular que siguió a la muerte del arzobispo Pardo (1689) hasta finales del siglo XVII.     

Microstoria,Pacific History,and the Question of Scale: Two or Three Things That We Should Know About Them

This article is prompted by the recent debate on the so-called crisis in the humanities, and the related call for historians to change direction by returning to history of the longue durée. While pointing out that the ‘crisis’ is more influenced by the changing political economy of the tertiary education sector than by specific historiographical practices, I suggest that small-scale analysis remains compatible with global history approaches. Articulating a parallel examination of Pacific historiography and the Italian variant of microhistory, the article argues that the latter provides fertile stimuli for Pacific history. In particular, I maintain that integrating social analysis can serve to counterbalance the over-emphasis on cultural aspects found in much Pacific historiography.     

A New Kushite Historiography: Three Recent Contributions to Nubian Studies

For almost two hundred years Nubian Studies was treated as a sub-discipline of Egyptology. Not surpisingingly, histories of Kush written in this tradition were strongly Egyptocentric in their emphases. During the last quarter of a century, however, Nubian Studies has emerged as a distinct discipline in its own right. The three books reviewed in this article reflect this transformation.     

Detection of archaeological crop marks by using satellite QuickBird multispectral imagery

The capability of satellite QuickBird imagery for the identification of archaeological crop marks is herein presented and discussed for two test sites located in the South of Italy. The selected sites, dating back to Middle Ages, were buried under surfaces covered by herbaceous plants characterized by a different phenological status (dry/green) when the satellite data were acquired.     

A hypothesis on different technological solutions for outdoor and indoor Roman wall paintings

The determination of the chemical composition of different parts of wall paintings (pigments, mortars and binders) provides information about technology of preparation of an artefact. Herein, we present a multi-methodological characterisation of wall paintings from a Roman archaeological site in Cuma, focusing on differences between an indoor (domus) and outdoor fabrication (a temple, Tempio con Portico (TCP)). Both pigments, binders and mortars were studied via a combination of destructive/μ-destructive (mass spectrometry, ionic chromatography, ICP-based techniques) and non-destructive (Raman microscopy, small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) and X-ray diffraction) methodologies. Particularly, the systematic presence of dolomite only in mortars from TCP may suggest an intentional use of such limestone for the outdoor fabrication of public interest. Differences between TCP and domus are also related to the composition of the pigment binder. In particular, the detected binders (studied by LC-MS/MS and GC-MS) were proteinaceous in the case of domus (possibly egg and animal glue) and drying oils in the case of TCP. Ultimately, our multi-methodological study provides an overall picture of the material components of paintings from fabrications with different use, proposing a hypothesis on technological choices according to conservative and destination reasons.     

Microarchaeology of a collective burial: cova des Pas (Minorca)

FTIR and phytolith analyses have been used to understand the exceptional preservation of the organic remains at the burial cave of Cova des Pas (Minorca), and to obtain high-resolution data of the plant remains present in the sediments. The presence of sodium nitrate and gypsum suggests a relatively dry environment that has enabled the preservation of the organic material, and contributed to the natural mummification. The dry conditions also favored phytolith preservation. Grass inflorescence phytoliths are abundant all over the site suggesting that phytolith accumulations might have an anthropogenic origin and are related to the burial ritual.