250 Million Years of Earth History in Central Italy: Celebrating 25 Years of the Geological Observatory of Coldigioco

Central Italy has been a cradle of geology for centuries. For more than 100 years, studies at the Umbria and Marche Apennines have led to new ideas and a better understanding of the past, such as the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary event, or the events across the Eocene-Oligocene transition from a greenhouse to an icehouse world. The Umbria-Marche Apennines are entirely made of marine sedimentary rocks, representing a continuous record of the geotectonic evolution of an epeiric sea from the Early Triassic to the Pleistocene. The book includes reviews and original research works accomplished with the support of the Geological Observatory of Coldigioco, an independent research and educational center, which was founded in an abandoned medieval hamlet near Apiro in 1992.
Provenance studies of amphorae from the Greek colony Pharos on the island of Hvar, Croatia
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Published:September 11, 2019
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CiteCitation
Maja Miše*,†, V. Serneels†, A. Matana†, A. Montanari†, B. Kirigin†, 2019. "Provenance studies of amphorae from the Greek colony Pharos on the island of Hvar, Croatia", 250 Million Years of Earth History in Central Italy: Celebrating 25 Years of the Geological Observatory of Coldigioco, Christian Koeberl, David M. Bice
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ABSTRACT
We present the results of a compositional characterization study of amphorae from the ancient Greek town of Pharos, today Stari Grad, on the island of Hvar, in central Dalmatia, Croatia. The aim of the study was to identify the provenance of amphorae unearthed in Pharos, to determine the locally produced amphorae, and to identify the provenance of imported amphorae with a scientific-based approach, using optical thin-section petrography and bulk geochemical analysis by wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence on 19 samples of different types of amphorae and reference materials. The results of the analyses allowed us to identify a group of imported amphorae from Corinth or Corfu and a group of imported amphorae from southern Italy, probably from Calabria. We were also able to identify a third group of imported amphorae from an as-yet-unknown provenance/workshop. Finally, according to the geochemical composition and close match with the reference material, namely, kitchenware, only two amphorae from the examined collection could be identified as local products. The results of the compositional characterization of amphorae from Pharos show us that an ancient Greek town had trade contacts beyond the Adriatic-Ionian region, and they provide opportunities for further studies of ancient amphorae production and circulation in this part of the Mediterranean.
- Adriatic region
- Adriatic Sea
- archaeological sites
- archaeology
- artifacts
- chemical composition
- clastic sediments
- clay
- Corinth Greece
- Croatia
- Dalmatia
- East Mediterranean
- Europe
- Greece
- human activity
- Ionian Sea
- Mediterranean Sea
- Peloponnesus Greece
- provenance
- raw materials
- sediments
- Southern Europe
- spectra
- X-ray fluorescence spectra
- Corfu Island
- Stari Grad Croatia
- Pharos
- amphorae
- Hvar Croatia