És l’estudi de les principals pedreres de Catalunya, analitzant, per una banda, la localització geogràfica, la contextualització en el territori antic, el treball a la pedrera amb detecció de traces d’eina i el càlcul de volumetria i, per una altra, la datació de material petri en època romana a través de l’estudi dels casos més significatius, com Tarraco, Dertosa o Barcino.

Quantitative cathodoluminescence (CL) has rarely been applied for the archaeometric studies concerning marble provenance, despite its potential. This paper develops the method and provides a new database of the parameters obtained from the main marble quarries used in antiquity. With a total number of 473 marble samples from ten districts of the central and eastern Mediterranean, it is the first database on quantitative CL, with the additional advantage of being the same samples that have already characterized by other conventional techniques and that are available in the literature. Focused on the measurements of the intensity peaks at the UV and visible spectra, registered by a spectrometer coupled to a scanning electron microscope (CL-SEM), the representative values are plotted on different useful diagrams to be applied in the identification of marble provenance studies, as a complementary tool of other analyses.

In spite of the great leap forward experienced in our understanding of the use of marble and other ornamental stones in Roman Spain, provenance studies are still quite uncommon in some territories of the Iberian Peninsula. This was the case of the northwesternmost part (modern Galicia), where no significant work had been done until now. Within the framework of an interdisciplinary study, a significant number of objects studied did not match with the main well-known Classical marbles but seemed to have been produced with a local stone known as O Incio marble, which had never been yet archaeometrically analysed. Therefore, the quarries near the small village of O Incio were located and sampled, and a multi-method approach combining polarized-light microscopy, cathodoluminescence, X-ray powder diffraction and stable C and O isotope analysis as well as spectrophotometry was applied to characterize the different outcropping marble varieties as the first and basic step to correctly differentiate them from other Iberian and foreign marbles with similar macroscopic features.

En este trabajo presentamos los resultados de los análisis arqueométricos realizados a un fragmento de escultura de mármol documentado en el patio del yacimiento de Casas del Turuñuelo (Guareña, Badajoz) durante los trabajos realizados en el año 2017. Estos análisis han permitido confirmar que el mármol procede de las canteras del Pentélico (Atenas, Grecia), lo que la convierten en la escultura de mármol griega más antigua, hasta la fecha, de la arqueología peninsular. Su estudio ha permitido además recuperar los restos de policromía y caracterizar los pigmentos empleados. Por último, se presenta el contexto arqueológico e histórico de la pieza objeto de estudio, así como sus posibles paralelos.

As in many other areas of the Roman Empire, the exploitation of stone resources for the construction of buildings, public areas, infrastructure, sculptures, inscriptions and other objects, such as sarcophagi, was a key activity in Roman Spain from the beginning of the Roman conquest. However, the study of supply areas (the quarries) has been limited to date. Taking north-eastern Spain as a case study, this article addresses the importance of identifying ancient quarries by field work at the sites and archaeometric characterization of the materials. Along with consideration of the distribution of the stone from specific quarries throughout and beyond the region, this provides a solid basis to appreciate the significance of stone exploitation as part of the process of Romanization.

The study of the provenance of dolomitic marble artefacts has become relevant since it was discovered that quarries of this marble other than that of Cape-Vathy located on the island of Thasos have been exploited since Antiquity. To improve our knowledge about the provenance of materials and the extent of their dispersion, multiple archaeometric studies were performed in the past including isotope analyses, petrography, cathodoluminescence, and elemental analyses. In the present work, solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has been added to this panel of techniques. NMR allows the characterization of the material at a molecular level by looking at different nuclei: carbon, magnesium, and calcium. Statistical analysis of the data collected on both quarry samples and archaeologic items was also implemented and clearly demonstrates the efficiency of a holistic approach for provenance elucidation. Finally, the first ²⁵Mg NMR tests have shown the potential of this technique to discriminate between dolomitic marbles of different provenance. The results are discussed in terms of their historical meaning and illustrate the exploitation of sources of dolomitic marbles other than the Greek Thasos source.