One
of the initial SMATCH programs involved the study of precious stones,
particularly
emeralds, that were included in ancient Roman funerary dowries.
This led to a
broader
study of THE FASCINATING WORLD OF EMERALDS.
The
necklace, reconstructed above, was found with other jewelery in
Oplontis in "Villa
B" (perhaps belonging to Lucius Crassus Tertius) in association with
the remains of a woman killed by a pyroclastic flow from the 79 AD
eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What
is an Emerald?
Archeological
Emeralds - Origins and Exchange Routes of Roman Jewelry, 1st and 2nd
Centuries
A.D.
Team
Members
Dr.
Carlo Aurisicchio, Chemist, Team Leader
Dr.
Stella Nunziante Cesaro, Chemist, Physicist
Dr.
Giorgio Graziani, Mineralogist
Dr.
Maurizio Sannibale, Art Historian, Archeologist
Sylvana
Ehrman, Gemologist, Translator, Project Coordinator
(Click
on names for biographic information)
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Of
all objects recovered in excavations from antiquity, precious stones
are
certainly the most rare, enigmatic, and challenging. Their
classification
is far more difficult than that of more common objects. As a
result,
many archeological gemstones are displayed without context, lacking
information
even about where or when they were found.
In
this project, the team members provide an organic and comparative
interpretation,
melding archeological and historical information with data derived from
an interdisciplinary scientific analysis of each specimen. They
have
combined their efforts to study, particularly, the green stones,
including
true emeralds, to identify the places where ancient stones originated,
to differentiate materials from mines known to have existed since
antiquity,
to suggest what type of tools and procedures might have been used in
the
extraction of stones and in the creation of ancient jewelry
objects,
and to suggest routes of trade and exchange among peoples of the past.
Only
interdisciplinary collaboration can bring about an exact and complete
identification
of techniques, dates, and origins and can eliminate distortions caused
by the manipulations of dealers, cheap restorers, and others.
Only
minute and accurate examination of each piece can separate the false
from
the authentic. A scientific study of Roman gemstones, among them
stones recovered from the area devastated by the Vesuvius eruption of
79
A.D., will yield additional information about the individual objects
and
also will provide a broader understanding of the Roman Empire's
technological
and economic history.(1)
The
project is nothing less than the continuation of the process begun by
Theophrastus,
a disciple of Aristotle, when he described in his Peri Lithon
the
emerald and its "curious powers" and by Pliny the Elder in his Natural
History when he identified twelve kinds of green stones
("smaragdus")
and sorted them by the regions of their origin.
For
a description of the 79 AD Vesuvius eruption by an eye-witness, click here
to read the letters of Pliny the Younger to the great Roman Historian
Tacitus.
Tacitus preserved the letters and incorporated details in his own
history
of the period. Click here
for a description of the eruption, based on modern scientific
methodologies,
by SMATCH Board member Tom
Wukitsch.