A contribution to the study of post-depositional alterations of pottery using TL dating analysis

In luminescence dating, the potassium concentration significantly contributes to the dose rate value in the age estimation. Within this study, fine-grain thermoluminescence dating has been applied on sherds of calcareous pottery of known age, excavated at a Roman site in Mallorca, Spain. For those of the samples that showed signs of severe potassium leaching, according to chemical and mineralogical examination, the thermoluminescence analysis provided overestimated dates. By using the known archaeological age of the samples, a corrected dose rate value can be estimated which provides the potassium concentration averaged for the burial period. Finally, a step-like model can then be used to estimate the fraction of the burial period after which most of the alteration effects took place.     

Saints’ mobility and confinement: deconstructing Byzantine stories of (fe)male ascetics and monastics

This article investigates stories of holiness which have ascetics or monastics as their hero(in)es and which develop based on a careful interlocking of two concepts: wanderings in urban or desert environments and self-confinement in enclosed or secluded spaces. Through a close reading of two saints’ Lives (i.e., the Life of Mary of Egypt and the Life of Matrona of Perge) dating to the early and middle Byzantine periods, the present analysis uncovers the tripartite relationship between movement, confinement, and spiritual advancement from a literary-narrative point of view, thus deepening our understanding of asceticism and monasticism in Byzantine contexts.