Abstract
In the 1980ies Dr. Julia Asher-Greve conducted chemical and mineralogical material analysis on cylinder seals as a part of her SNF-funded project „Naturwissenschaftliche und typologische Untersuchungen an Rollsiegeln“. 1017 seals have been analysed using the non-destructive methods of EDS-XFA (energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis) for chemical classification and XRF (X-ray diffraction) for mineralogical classification. This was one of the first large scale projects on Mesopotamian glyptic with its main focus on materiality rather than style, iconography or inscription as was usually the case when working on cylinder seals. Since then much work on the materiality of seals has been done, mostly by institutions such as the British Museum. This is because those institutions have access to large seal corpora and they either have the funds to pay for the costly analysis or possess the means to analyse the seals themselves.
 As I ‘inherited’ the unfinished project of Dr. Asher-Greve including the analysis (which still need to be interpreted), I am painfully aware of the difficulties and problems to be encountered with such old analysis. In my 10-minute talk I will give an insight to the chances and limitations of scientific material analysis on archaeological artefacts. For especially small and precious objects like cylinder seals need to be treated with the uttermost care and under no circumstances should they take damage in the process of being analysed.
Highlights
In the 1980ies Dr Julia Asher-Greve conducted chemical and mineralogical material analysis on cylinder seals as a part of her SNFfunded project „Naturwissenschaftliche und typologische Untersuchungen an Rollsiegeln“. 1017 seals have been analysed using the non-destructive methods of EDS-XFA for chemical classification and XRF (X-ray diffraction) for mineralogical classification
This was one of the first large scale projects on Mesopotamian glyptic with its main focus on materiality rather than style, iconography or inscription as was usually the case when working on cylinder seals
In my 10-minute talk I will give an insight to the chances and limitations of scientific material analysis on archaeological artefacts
Summary
In the 1980ies Dr Julia Asher-Greve conducted chemical and mineralogical material analysis on cylinder seals as a part of her SNFfunded project „Naturwissenschaftliche und typologische Untersuchungen an Rollsiegeln“. 1017 seals have been analysed using the non-destructive methods of EDS-XFA (energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis) for chemical classification and XRF (X-ray diffraction) for mineralogical classification. In the 1980ies Dr Julia Asher-Greve conducted chemical and mineralogical material analysis on cylinder seals as a part of her SNFfunded project „Naturwissenschaftliche und typologische Untersuchungen an Rollsiegeln“.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: BAF-Online: Proceedings of the Berner Altorientalisches Forum
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
