Dendrochronological examination of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary orthodox church in the village of Pades, Greece

Abstract

The current study is a dendrochronological analysis of the wood from the church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, Pades, Greece which was built towards the end of the 18th century according to historical sources. Our tree-ring analysis shows that the date, 1784, given on the inscription at the main entrance of the church probably documents the year when the construction works began, and that there were several construction stages of the structural and decorative elements of the church until the early 19th century. Moreover, the oldest (reused) timber elements that were identified through our dendrochronological study date back to the first half of the 15th century and may indicate the first traces of the construction activity in and around Pades. The dendrochronological study enabled the development of three local reference chronologies for the Epirus region. The timespan for the developed chronologies for the church in Pades is: 1262-1825 for Pinus heldreichii (Bosnian pine), 1295-1854 for Pinus nigra (Black pine), and 1571-1767 for Quercus sp. (Deciduous oak).