Non-invasive characterization of the pigment’s palette used on the painted tomb slabs at Paestum archaeological site

Abstract

Abstract A scientific interdisciplinary team promoted an integrated archaeometric study of selected frescoed tombs within a project funded by Archaeological Museum of Paestum (Capaccio, Salerno, southern Italy). By using a multi-disciplinary approach, a comparative study of the pigments used on the representative painted slab tombs was carried out with the aim of identifying specific markers and unveiling the new features of the executive techniques. The investigated tombs, displayed at the museum or stored in the deposits, come from Hellenistic and Lucan necropolis. The preliminary investigation here discussed involved several nondestructive analytical techniques (IRR, UV fluorescence, VIL, FORS, ER-FTIR, Raman and XRF). This multi-analytical research was applied on the pictorial surface of the following frescoed tombs: the well-known Tomb of the Diver from Tempa del Prete necropolis; the Tomb of the Palmettes from Arcioni necropolis; the tombs T314 and T210 from Gaudo necropolis; the tombs T6, T23, T21, T76, T20, T11, T12 from Andriuolo necropolis and the tombs T109 and T110 from Santa Venera necropolis, were investigated. The archaeometric results shed light on some markers of a local artisanal tradition developed in the Greek colony of Paestum around 500-475 BC.