Abstract
In this work, preliminary results are presented of an ongoing investigation aiming to identify the possible material sources employed by ancient Romans in their building activity in the X Regio, the European region corresponding to present north-eastern Italy and Istria (Croatia and Slovenia). The 63–420 μm fraction of the aggregate component recovered from eleven mortar fragments of buildings located in the Veneto area (in or close to Lio Piccolo, Vicenza, and Padua) is studied by diffuse reflection infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy and compared through principal component analysis to samples collected from local potential sources of raw materials. In this regard, the investigated samples from Lio Piccolo present a distinctive complexity, being this site located within the Venice lagoon, an area that has since been undergoing dramatic changes both due to natural and anthropic causes. The Vicenza and Padua sites were considered for comparison sake because they are or were located close to two rivers, the Bacchiglione and the Brenta, that in ancient times flowed into the Venice lagoon. As expected, from the exploratory investigation reported here, no firm conclusions can be obtained for the mortar samples collected in Lio Piccolo, whereas the likely provenance of the aggregate component of the samples from Vicenza and Padova from the Bacchiglione and the Brenta riverbeds, respectively, is confirmed.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bearat H (1996) Chemical and mineralogical analyses of Gallo-Roman wall painting from Dietikon, Switzerland. Archaeometry 38:81–95
Bonazzi A, Santoro S, Mastrobattista E (2007) Caratterizzazione archeometrica delle malte e degli intonaci. In: Santoro S (ed) Pompei. Insula del Centenario (IX, 8) I. Indagini diagnostiche geofisiche e analisi archeometriche. Ante Quem, Bologna, pp 93–128 (in Italian)
Bondesan A, Furlanetto P (2012) Artificial fluvial diversions in the mainland of the lagoon of Venice during the 16th and 17th centuries inferred by historical cartography analysis. Géomorphologie 18(2):175–200
Campos-M M, Campos-C R (2017) Applications of quartering method in soils and foods. Int J Eng Res Appl 7:35–39
Castiglioni GB (1987) Le tracce degli antichi percorsi del Brenta per Montà e Arcella nei pressi di Padova: studio geomorfologico. Memorie di Scienze Geologiche XXXIX:129–149 (in Italian)
Colombi M (2016). Analisi spettroscopica e chemiometrica di intonaci e sabbie provenienti da Domus romane della X Regio tra Livenza e Tagliamento. MS thesis, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italy (in Italian)
Consorzio Venezia Nuova, MOSE homepage. In https://www.mosevenezia.eu/?lang=en [accessed Apr 2018]
D’Alpaos L (2010) Fatti e misfatti di idraulica lagunare, la laguna di Venezia dalla diversione dei fiumi alle nuove opere alle bocche di porto. Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Venezia (in Italian)
De Lorenzi Pezzolo A, Mazzocchin GA (2013) Spectroscopic-chemometric study of sands in mortars of Xth-Regio Roman domus. A comparison with nearby rivers sediments Sciences at Ca’ Foscari, 1: 24–38
De Lorenzi Pezzolo A, Valotto G, Quaranta A (2017) Carbonates and silicates abundance indexing in coarse-grained river sediments by DRIFTS and IBIL spectroscopies. Appl Spectrosc 71:1222–1230
De Lorenzi Pezzolo A, Colombi M, Mazzocchin GA (0000) A spectroscopic and chemometric comparison to local fluvial sands of the aggregate component of mortars from ancient Roman buildings located in the X Regio between the Livenza and Tagliamento rivers. Submitted to Appl Spectrosc
De Lorenzi Pezzolo A, Mazzocchin GA (in progress) Spectroscopic-chemometric study of sands in mortars from ancient Roman domus in Verona, Vicenza, Padova and Montegrotto and comparison with local raw material sources
Edwards HGM, Farwell DW (2008) The conservational heritage of wall paintings and buildings: an FT-Raman spectroscopic study of prehistoric, Roman, mediaeval and Renaissance lime substrates and mortars. J Raman Spectrosc 39:985–992
Fontana A (2008) Introduzione alla geologia della provincia di Venezia. In: Bondesan A, Primon S, Bassan V, Vitturi A (eds) Le unità geologiche della provincia di Venezia. Cierre, Verona, pp 16–32 (in Italian)
Fuller MP, Griffiths PR (1978) Diffuse reflectance measurements by infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy. Anal Chem 50:1906–1910
Gazzi P, Zuffa GG, Gandolfi G, Paganelli L (1973) Provenienza e dispersione litoranea delle sabbie delle spiagge adriatiche fra le foci dell’Isonzo e del Foglia: inquadramento regionale. Mem Soc Geol Ital 12:1–37 (in Italian)
Genestar C, Pons C, Mas A (2006) Analytical characterisation of ancient mortars from the archaeological Roman city of Pollentia (Balearic Islands, Spain). Anal Chim Acta 557:373–379
Gunasekaran S, Anbalagan G, Pandi S (2006) Raman and infrared spectra of carbonates of calcite structure. J Raman Spectrosc 37:892–899
Hindy KT, Baghdady AR (1998) A study of airborne minerals and associated organic species in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates. Environ Manag Health 9(4):160–164
Hlavay J, Jonas K, Elek S, Inczedy J (1978) Characterization of the particle size and the crystallinity of certain minerals by IR spectrophotometry and other instrumental methods—II. Investigation on quartz and feldspar. Clay Clay Miner 26(2):139–143
Jobstraibizer P, Malesani P (1973) I Sedimenti dei Fiumi Veneti. Mem Soc Geol Ital 12:411–452 (in Italian)
Kramar S, Zalar V, Urosevic M, Körner W, Mauko A, Mirtič B, Lux J, Mladenović A (2011) Mineralogical and microstructural studies of mortars from the bath complex of the Roman villa rustica near Mošnje (Slovenia). Mater Charact 62:1042–1057
Lavine BK (2000) Clustering and classification of analytical data. In: Meyers RA (ed) Encyclopedia of analytical chemistry: instrumentation and applications. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, pp 9689–9710
Mazzocchin GA, Agnoli F, Mazzocchin S, Colpo I (2003) Analysis of pigments from Roman wall paintings found in Vicenza. Talanta 61:565–572
Mazzocchin GA, Mazzocchin S, Rudello D (2011) Analisi dei pigmenti e degli strati preparatori di pitture parietali romane provenienti da Padova. XXXIII, Archeologia Veneta, pp 176–191 (in Italian)
Mikutta R, Kleber M, Kaiser K, Jahn R (2005) Review: Organic matter removal from soils using hydrogen peroxide, sodium hypochlorite, and disodium peroxodisulfate Soil Sci Soc Am J: 69, 120–135
Miller FA (2004) Infrared spectra of inorganic materials. In: Mayo DW, Miller FA, Hannah RW (ed.s), Course notes on the interpretation of infrared and Raman spectra. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, pp. 297–354
Miriello D, Barca D, Bloise A, Ciarallo A, Crisci GM, De Rose T, Gattuso C, Gazineo F, La Russa MF (2010) Characterisation of archaeological mortars from Pompeii (Campania, Italy) and identification of construction phases by compositional data analysis. J Archaeol Sci 37:2207–2223
Miriello D, Bloise A, Crisci GM, Apollaro C, La Marca A (2011) Characterisation of archaeological mortars and plasters from Kyme (Turkey). J Archaeol Sci 38:794–804
Modolo M. (2008) Analisi di frammenti dipinti di epoca romana di una casa scoperta a Lio Piccolo, MS Thesis, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italy (in Italian)
Moenke HH (1974) Silica, the three-dimensional silicates, borosilicates and beryllium silicates. In: Farmer VC (ed), The infrared spectra of minerals. Mineralogical Society, London, pp. 365–382
Moropoulou A, Polikreti K, Bakolas A, Michailidis P (2003) Correlation of physicochemical and mechanical properties of historical mortars and classification by multivariate statistics. Cem Concr Res 33:891–898
Nash DJ, Hopkinson L (2004) A reconaissance laser Raman and Fourier transform infrared survey of silcretes from the Kalahari Desert, Botswana. Earth Surf Processes and Landforms 29(12):1541–1558
Pavia A, Caro S (2008) An investigation of Roman mortar technology through the petrographic analysis of archaeological material. Constr Build Mater 22:1807–1811
Rampazzi L, Pozzi A, Sansonetti A, Toniolo L, Giussani B (2006) A chemometric approach to the characterisation of historical mortars. Cement Concr Research 36:1108–1114
Riccardi MP, Duminuco P, Tomasi C, P. Ferloni P (1998) Thermal, microscopic and X-ray diffraction studies on some ancient mortars. Thermochim. Acta 321: 207–214
Saikia BJ, Parthasarathy G, Sarmah NC (2008) Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic estimation of cristallinity in SiO2 based rocks. Bull Mater Sci 31(5):775–779
Schiavon N, Mazzocchin GA (2009) The provenance of sand in mortars from Roman Villas in NE Italy: a chemical-mineralogical approach. The Open Mineralogy Journal 3: 32–39
Shiens J (2014) A tutorial on principal component analysis. Cornell University Library arXiv:1404.1100 [cs.LG]. In: https://arxiv.org/abs/1404.1100 [accessed Apr 2018]
Velosa AL, Coroado J, Veiga MR, Rocha F (2007) Characterisation of roman mortars from Conímbriga with respect to their repair. Mater Charact 58:1208–1216
Vitruvius, De Architectura, Book II. In: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/2*.html [accessed Apr 2018]
White WB (1974) The carbonate minerals. In: Farmer VC (ed) The infrared spectra of minerals. Mineralogical Society, London, pp. 227–284
Funding
This work has been supported by University Ca’ Foscari Venezia (ADiR funds).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Responsible editor: Michel Sablier
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
De Lorenzi Pezzolo, A., Colombi, M. & Mazzocchin, G.A. Where did Roman masons get their material from? A preliminary DRIFTS/PCA investigation on mortar aggregates from X Regio buildings in the Veneto area (NE Italy) and their potential sources. Environ Sci Pollut Res 25, 28798–28807 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-2202-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-2202-0