Affiliation:
1. Saint Petersburg State Chemical Pharmaceutical University
2. Sevastopol State University; State Historical Archaeological Museum-Reserve “Tauric Chersonese”
3. Scheltec AG
Abstract
A fragment of an amphora found in the Kruglaya Bay near Sevastopol was filled with an unknown brown substance with a strong smell of tar. On the vessel’s neck, there is a round stamp ~30 mm in diameter, depicting the bust of an emperor encircled by an inscription. It resembles stamps on amphorae made in Alexandria and the Geronisos Island. The inscription reads, “επί Πτολεμαίου επάρχου”. The gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis revealed dehydroabietic acid, methyl dehydroabietate, norabietatrienes, retene, and other phenanthrene derivatives, suggesting that the substance resulted from dry distillation of wood of the Pinaceae family. The headspace analysis yielded components of turpentine oil such as α-pinene, camphene, limonene, cymenes, and others terpenes. To establish the sample’s origin, the amphora’s content was compared with modern pinewood tar obtained by the traditional method. Given nearly identical chromatogram profiles of the amphora’s contents and of tar in areas relating to resin acids, similar values of peak areas of biomarker components, and the presence of turpentine oil components in the sample, it is highly probable that the amphora indeed contained tar.
Publisher
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS
Reference32 articles.
1. Bonaduce I., Ribechini E., Modugno F., Colombini M.P. 2016 Analytical approaches based on gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC/MS) to study organic materials in artworks and archaeological objects. Topics in Current Chemistry, No. 374 (1): 6.
2. Bukatov A.A., Arzhanov A.Y. 2021 Srednevekoviye amfory iz podvodnykh razvedok v bukhte Kruglaya v 2020 g. In Istoricheskiye, kulturniye, mezhnatsionalniye, religiozniye i politicheskiye svyazi Kryma so Sredizemnomorskim regionom i stranami Vostoka. Moscow: Inst. vostokovedeniya RAN, pp. 55–57.
3. Bukatov A.A., Bondarev I.P., Dyuzhenko T.V. 2020 K voprosu o sushchestvovanii gavani Khersonesa v bukhte Kruglaya. Khersonesskiy sbornik. No. 21: 7–16.
4. Carpy A.J., Marchand-Geneste N. 2003 Theoretical study of the thermal degradation pathways of abietane skeleton diterpenoids: Aromatization to retene. Journal of Molecular Structure: Theochem. No. 635: 55–82.
5. Charrié-Duhaut A., Burger P., Maurer J., Connan J., Albrecht P. 2009 Molecular and isotopic archaeology: Top grade tools to investigate organic archaeological materials. Comptes Rendus Chimie, No. 12: 1140–1153.