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An extensive colour palette in Roman villas in Burgos, Northern Spain: a Raman spectroscopic analysis

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Abstract

Seventy-five specimens from thirty fragments of Roman villa wall-paintings from sites in Burgos Castilla y Leon, Spain, have been analysed by Raman spectroscopy. This is the first time that a Raman spectrocopic study of Roman wall-paintings from Spain has been reported. The extensive range of tonalities and colour compositions contrasts with the results found in other provinces of the Roman Empire, for example Romano-British villas. Calcite, aragonite, haematite, caput mortuum, cinnabar, limonite, goethite, cuprorivaite, lazurite, green earth, carbon and verdigris have been found as pigments. Some mineral mixtures with different tonalities have been made using different strategies to those more usually found. Of particular interest is the assignation of the Tarna mine for the origin of the cinnabar used for obtaining the red colour in some specimens analysed here. The wide range of colours, tonalities and minerals found in some of the sites studied in this work is suggestive of a high social status for the community.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been carried out with the support—for SEJV—of the Secretaria de Estado de Educacion y Universidades from the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deportes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Area de Geodinamica Interna, Facultad de Humanidades y Educacion, Universidad de Burgos, C/ Villadiego s/n, Burgos 09001, Spain

    S. E. J. Villar

  2. Department of Chemical and Forensic Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford, BD7 1DP, UK

    H. G. M. Edwards

Authors
  1. S. E. J. Villar
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  2. H. G. M. Edwards
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Correspondence to S. E. J. Villar.

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Villar, S.E.J., Edwards, H.G.M. An extensive colour palette in Roman villas in Burgos, Northern Spain: a Raman spectroscopic analysis. Anal Bioanal Chem 382, 283–289 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-004-2876-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-004-2876-7

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