Hilary Becker
Address: Department of Middle Eastern and Ancient Mediterranean Studies
Binghamton University - SUNY
LT 510 - P.O. Box 6000
Binghamton NY 13902-6000 U.S.A.
Binghamton University - SUNY
LT 510 - P.O. Box 6000
Binghamton NY 13902-6000 U.S.A.
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In addition, certain commercial conventions developed that stated who could buy the more expensive pigments (like cinnabar and lapis lazuli). These conventions were most likely developed to protect all of the stakeholders in the Roman painting industry: pigmentarii, artists, and those who commissioned frescoes. Both artists and unscrupulous pigmentarii had incentives to adulterate more expensive pigments. For instance, the value of one pound of cinnabar was equivalent to 56 pounds of red ochre. There was indeed ancient concern that profit-minded people might adulterate or even fake painting and other artists’ supplies. For this reason, the ancient Roman buyer had recourse to a number of preventative measures, rough chemical tests, and other sensory checks which might help them determine whether certain pigments and other supplies had been correctly labeled. Thus the pigment industry, long neglected, offers an opportunity to understand the commercial concerns of Roman artists as they sought to get the correct products.
trade, and transport, coinage, governance, and warfare. The frescoes of the Tomb of Giglioli at Tarquinia, and its walls decorated with armor, will provide one of the valuable case studies used in this examination.
In 1974 a pigment shop dating to the middle Imperial period was found within the sacred precinct of the Temples of Fortuna and Mater Matuta (Area Sacra di S. Omobono) in Rome. This pigment shop offers an opportunity to revisit issues of painters and their raw materials, as well as issues connected to Imperial tabernae. Since it appears that a variety of pigments were marketed together in one shop, this in turn prompts us to think about the commercial organization behind the pigment industry and just how these pigments were collected, sold, and even used. Such an organization is hinted at by a mass of pigment found at Pompeii which had been stamped with the production and/or merchant mark “Attioru(m)”. Other examples of paint shops from antiquity will be considered, as well as other evidence that might shed light on the commerce in pigments and the artists that used them. This paper offers an opportunity both to contextualize the supply-side economy of Roman painting and to examine the acquisition and distribution of raw materials within the Roman economic network.
In addition, certain commercial conventions developed that stated who could buy the more expensive pigments (like cinnabar and lapis lazuli). These conventions were most likely developed to protect all of the stakeholders in the Roman painting industry: pigmentarii, artists, and those who commissioned frescoes. Both artists and unscrupulous pigmentarii had incentives to adulterate more expensive pigments. For instance, the value of one pound of cinnabar was equivalent to 56 pounds of red ochre. There was indeed ancient concern that profit-minded people might adulterate or even fake painting and other artists’ supplies. For this reason, the ancient Roman buyer had recourse to a number of preventative measures, rough chemical tests, and other sensory checks which might help them determine whether certain pigments and other supplies had been correctly labeled. Thus the pigment industry, long neglected, offers an opportunity to understand the commercial concerns of Roman artists as they sought to get the correct products.
trade, and transport, coinage, governance, and warfare. The frescoes of the Tomb of Giglioli at Tarquinia, and its walls decorated with armor, will provide one of the valuable case studies used in this examination.
In 1974 a pigment shop dating to the middle Imperial period was found within the sacred precinct of the Temples of Fortuna and Mater Matuta (Area Sacra di S. Omobono) in Rome. This pigment shop offers an opportunity to revisit issues of painters and their raw materials, as well as issues connected to Imperial tabernae. Since it appears that a variety of pigments were marketed together in one shop, this in turn prompts us to think about the commercial organization behind the pigment industry and just how these pigments were collected, sold, and even used. Such an organization is hinted at by a mass of pigment found at Pompeii which had been stamped with the production and/or merchant mark “Attioru(m)”. Other examples of paint shops from antiquity will be considered, as well as other evidence that might shed light on the commerce in pigments and the artists that used them. This paper offers an opportunity both to contextualize the supply-side economy of Roman painting and to examine the acquisition and distribution of raw materials within the Roman economic network.
Class sessions stress humanities research methodologies alongside the quantitative and experimental methods of STEM fields, offering students early in their college career insights into processes and modes of research. Students made frescoes themselves to understand the chemical processes behind the creation of art, and made acrylic paints, while varying different additives, to understand the significance of each ingredient in the process. Students also learned how materials may be studied with experimental techniques such as x-ray fluorescence, x-ray diffraction, multispectral imaging, and electron microscopy, by analyzing pigments and artworks in Binghamton University’s Art Museum and in the Analytical and Diagnostics Laboratory.
This paper also highlights the work of the graphic designer who has been involved in planning this course from its inception. His work for Materials Matter is driven by the overarching goal of communicating complex chemical and physical processes by utilizing an integrative visual language. To this end, a graphical framework has been designed to bring into view all aspects of this course in a scalar manner, from the atomic level to the socio-cultural level, so that students can visually map the entire humanistic-scientific domain of one material as we focus upon it in different ways. An interactive student app is in development that integrates the various elements of this course using a scalar framework, in order to supplement lecture material and to provide interactive lab assignments.
Etruscan sanctuaries played an economic role in their larger community at all times; the evidence for this activity in this period is considered here. This activity includes the votive objects themselves, some of which, at least, seem to have been purchased at the sacred site. The resources that a temple could amass because of dedicatory offerings could even attract looting, for which there are attestations during this period. Weights found in sacred contexts also allow us to understand more about the economic dimensions of the temple. Finally, the evidence for coinage and state property is briefly reviewed.