Instituto di Norvegia in Roma Viale Trenta Aprile 33 00153 Roma Tel. +39 06 5939 1000/6/7 E-mail: [email protected] Sito web: http://www.hf.uio.no/dnir/ ‘Alabaster’: an interdisciplinary workshop on the sources and uses of calcite-alabaster across archaeological contexts Organising Committee: Simon J. Barker & Simona Perna Norwegian Institute in Rome 9-10 May 2019 The aim of this workshop is to look at the archaeological identification and use of alabaster, including its quarry sources, historical uses and symbolism from a comparative, interdisciplinary perspective. Characterized by a high visual impact and a deep semiotic value, alabaster was one of the most sought after decorative stones throughout antiquity; however, many aspects connected to its quarrying, scientific provenance and use remain unexplored. This contrasts with other decorative stones, especially white marble, where quarry sample databases and ever-developing techniques and methodologies for material characterization and provenance determination (Antonelli and Lazzarini 2015; Attanasio et al. 2006; Lazzarini 2004; Zöldföldi et al. 2008) have allowed marble artefacts to be provenanced with high reliability. While recent research has attempted to provide similar information for alabaster identification and provenance (Perna 2015; Perna and Barker 2017; Barker and Perna 2018; Barker et al. ASMOSIA XI; Barker and Perna ASMOSIA XI), the existing literature on the subject is still insufficient and scattered. As such, the quarrying, use and meaning of alabaster deserve an extensive study, akin to those already extended to other popular types of decorative stone. The objective of this workshop is to bring together, for the first time, scholars from several disciplines to offer comprehensive insight into alabaster as an archaeological aretefact. This will include a discussion of past and current issues related to the study and identification of this ornamental stone. The workshop’s primary aim is to contribute to the scientific debate on the trade and use of decorative stones in antiquity by studying the production, distribution and consumption of alabaster in the Mediterranean. The focus will be on the Roman period, however, for the analysis to be as comprehensive as possible, the workshop will include discussions of both earlier (Bronze Age, Hellenistic) and later periods (Late Antiquity, early Christian, Medieval, Renaissance). Geographically, the workshop will focus on the uses of this stone across the Mediterranean (Egypt, Asia Minor, Near East, Europe) to understand and analyse patterns of quarrying, trade, use and meaning both diachronically and cross-culturally from a wider comparative perspective. The importance of alabaster for Roman society, combined with its durability, provenancing potential, and chronological resolution – alabaster objects, such as pavements and urns, are generally well-dated – make it a very promising subject of research for archaeologists and historians. The outcome and publication of this workshop is expected to be a much needed and thorough study of this important stone that gathers together all available evidence. It will provide the first systematic and interdisciplinary examination of alabaster and is therefore set to become a point of reference for comparative analyses and a practical tool for future research on this decorative stone. Practical Information The Norwegian Institute in Rome is pleased to announce that the workshop will take place from Thursday 9th May until Friday 10th May. The full programme follows below. The workshop is free but we kindly ask people to register at the following email: [email protected] by May 1st. The conference will take place in Norwegian Institute in Rome, which is located on gianicolo hill on Viale Trenta Aprile 33. The Institute is located within a 5-10 minute walk of both the 44 and 75 bus routes. The Norwegian Institute and workshop organising committee looks forward to welcoming you this coming May. For any questions, please contact: [email protected] 2 ‘Alabaster’: an interdisciplinary workshop on the sources and uses of calcite-alabaster across archaeological contexts Norwegian Institute in Rome 9-10 May 2019 Organising Committee: Simon J. Barker & Simona Perna DAY 1: THURSDAY 9TH MAY 9:00-10:00 REGISTRATION 10:00-10:30 INTRODUCTION TO THE WORKSHOP Organising Committee and Christopher Prescott, Director of the Norwegian Institute in Rome 10:30 -11:00 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE CALCITE ALABASTERS USED IN ANTIQUITY AS DECORATIVE STONES Lorenzo Lazzarini, Università Iuav di Venezia This paper will present an introduction to the varieties of decorative stone (termed alabaster) that were used in Antiquity. The origin of the term alabaster is probably connected to Alabastrites, the old name of the Central Egyptian region (the area from Assiut to Minia) where the well-known calcite alabaster called lapis alabastrites or alabastrum melleum by the Romans, was quarried from Late Neolithic times to the present. In Antiquity this term clearly referred to an almost pure calcite (calcium carbonate)-rock. It was only in modern times that the term “alabaster” was also used (only, or especially by Anglo-Saxon mineralogists and petrographers), to identify gypsum (by-hydrated calcium sulphate), whose transparent or translucid variety was known to Romans as lapis specularis. The confusion, sometimes still current, affects the classification of alabasters which is further complicated by the fact that calcite alabasters are, and should be, correctly classified geologically as travertines. It should however be taken into consideration that all the most beautiful and famous polychromed travertines used in Antiquity were named alabasters by the Roman stone- cutters of the Renaissance and Baroque, and that their names, often specifying colour and texture (e.g. a ciliegino, cinerino, cotognino, fiorito, ghiaccione, listato, marino, a pecorella, a tartaruga, etc.), are the oldest known traditional names that should still be used. The sedimentary genesis of travertines may be connected to the precipitation of calcite from cold groundwater saturated with meteoric CO2 (meteogenetic travertines), or from the thermally-generated degassing of the same gas in hot ground-waters present in correspondence with tectonic or volcanic activity (thermogenetic travertines). Both travertines may be bedded and/or banded according to their depositional environment: the first are the most common subaerial travertine, normally forming mounds; the second form inside vertical or sub-vertical lithoclases tectonically opened in the former travertines, typically in fissure-ridges. Examples of bedded travertines are alabastro cotognino (Central Egypt), alabastro di Jano di Montaione and di Castelnuovo dell’Abate (Tuscany); examples of banded travertines are alabastro fiorito/listato from Hierapolis (Turkey) and Diebel Oust (Tunisia). The 3 genesis and characteristics of other lesser known Italian alabasters from Campania (Gesualdo- Villamaina, and Fontegreca on the Matese Mountains, all in the Avellino province) and Sicily (Monte Pellegrino near Palermo) used in post-antique monuments will also be discussed. 11:00-11:30 COFFEE BREAK 11:30-12:00 ALABASTRO DEL CIRCEO AND OTHER ITALIAN ALABASTERS Matthias Bruno, Independent Researcher, Rome The most famous quarries of Italy are without any doubt those of the Apuan Alps, an immense marble district in which the white Luna marble was quarried and, in much smaller quantities, also the gray bardiglio variety. Within the Italian peninsula many other ancient quarries produced various polychrome stones, such as the granites from the islands of Sardinia, Elba and Giglio and Nicotera in Calabria. Variegated polychrome marbles like the Breccia rossa Apenninica, the Breccia rosata di Roselle, that from Serrravezza, the Cottanello, the pietra paesina, the litomarga verde or the lapis niger came from central Italy. Added to these are the alabasters extracted in Tuscany and Latium. This paper will look at these Italian sources and the alabasters that they produce. Volterra alabaster is attested since the Etruscan age, especially for small funerary urns, while the use of the Montaione alabaster, which can be identified as a kind of alabastro listato, is not really attested in Roman Antiquity. From Latium, however, an area that has produced different alabaster qualities is that of the Circeo promontory. Here, several small quarries have produced small amounts of alabaster of different qualities since Roman times. In the locality "La Batteria", the quarry produced a light-colored alabaster, sometimes similar to ice and therefore called also "alabaster a ghiaccione". This alabaster, whose quarries were reopened in the sixteenth century, was most likely used in Roman times, as testified by some evidences from the Vesuvian cities. Other different varieties were quarried in other locations of the promontory, among which, one near S. Felice Circeo, a so-called “tartarugato” alabaster variety was extracted. 12:00-12:30 ALABASTER IN ANCIENT ALGERIA (NUMIDIA AND MAURETANIA) John J. Herrmann, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Annewies Vandenhoek, Harvard University/Harvard Semitic Museum Algeria is endowed with many sources of alabaster or onyx marble, and two of them have become rather famous. Alabaster a pecorella, which comes from Bouhanifia in western Algeria, is well known for its use in Roman times, especially in Italy. Aïn Tekbalet, also in western Algeria, produces an onyx marble that was