The Carbon and Oxygen Isotope Composition of the Marble Inscriptions of Aléria, Corsica

Abstract

Aléria was the main city of the island of Corsica in ancient times. Archaeological excavations in the area where ancient Aléria once stood began between the 1950s and 1960s and brought to light numerous inscriptions mainly carved on slabs of white marble; they constitute an important source of knowledge of the city’s institutions, urban topography, society, and economy. The provenance of the marbles, on which the inscriptions were carved, can add important information about the history of the city. A first visual examination of the slabs or slab fragments allows us to state that Carrara is probably the provenance of most of the marbles used. Practical reasons lead us to believe that the provenance of these marbles can be traced back to two main quarry areas: Carrara, or somewhere in Corsica. The determination of the stable isotope composition of these marbles could solve this problem. Carrara marble, in fact, has a narrow range of isotopic variability, with values typical of marine carbonates, that allows for a strong characterization. The petrographic method of investigation was used, as a second step, on a reduced number of marble inscriptions to evaluate the effectiveness of the isotopic characterization of Carrara. The results of the analysis confirmed that most of the gray and white marbles studied have Carrara as their quarrying area; they also revealed that in Corsica the presence of ancient local marble quarries is uncertain, even in Roman times.