Reading Moabite Pigments with laser Ablation ICP-MS : A new Archaeometric Technique for Near Eastern Archaeology

Color was everywhere in the ancient Near East and, as historians of art have argued, an essential part of the visual aesthetic landscape. Whether employed in statuary, wall paintings, garments, or everyday objects, color affected viewers' experiences and communicated implicit messages of power, divinity, and piety. When investigating color, archaeologists typically have relied on low-level visual recording instruments such as Munsell color charts to compare color across artifact assemblages. Archaeologists oftentimes were left wondering what ingredients were needed to create pigment recipes and to what extent these recipes were shared across craft-production centers. Until recently, scholars lacked an affordable high-resolution and minimally destructive approach with which to identify pigment recipes and measure the distribution of recipes among assemblages. (Résumé de la revue)