Characterisation of White Marble Objects from the Temple of Apollo and the House of Augustus (Palatine Hill, Rome)

Abstract

The provenance of the marbles of eleven artefacts collected in the temple of Apollo and the house of Augustus at the Palatine Hill archaeological excavations in Rome has been determined using a multi-method approach that includes petrography and isotopes of carbon and oxygen. Two samples are from fragments of statues, one of which is likely the Apollo statuary representation; the other samples are from architectural elements (columns, capitals, plates and cornices). The marbles of the Augustan complex represent the first example of a change in the taste for building materials of monumental architecture at the Palatine Hill in the Augustan age; their introduction started the “marmorisation” process in the area. In this transition, it is especially important to determine if the marble artefacts that were subjects of a religious cult were originals from Greece or copies that were carved during the building of the Augustan complex. In order to discriminate between these two possibilities, it is necessary to identify the geographic location at which the marbles considered were quarried. In our selection of samples, isotopic and petrographic results indicate that most of the architectural elements are quite unambiguously made of marble of Italic provenance (i.e. Carrara marble), while the fragments of statues, which have a relation to a religious cult, seem to have Greek origin.