The challenge of a successful discrimination of ancient marbles (part III): A databank for Aphrodisias, Carrara, Dokimeion, Göktepe, Hymettos, Parian Lychnites and Pentelikon

Abstract

This paper deals with practical problems arising when investigating the provenance of ancient white marbles and assigning them to their original quarries or at least regions of origin. Stable isotope analysis as the method of implementation of marble provenance analysis is widely accepted, but it became apparent in recent decades that the selectivity of discrimination is very poor when the procedure is confined to this method. To overcome this problem a multi-method approach is introduced here including also trace element analysis and the analysis of inclusion fluids as additional variables. On this basis it is shown here that marbles defying separation on the basis of isotopes alone can be differentiated with very good success when using further chemical variables and a multivariate statistical approach for the evaluation of the results. This includes, for instance, the problems in distinguishing between Pentelic and Dokimeian marbles or intra-site separation of the latter. The analytical data of more than 400 quarry samples (each with 26 analytical variables) are given in the “Supplementary Online Material” to provide a databank for the application of this approach.