ADVANCED ANALYTICAL METHODS FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE MATERIALS

The teaching course is a characterizing activity of the CdS in Conservation Science and Technology for Cultural Heritage and it is focused on providing to the students the knowledge and the comprehension of the structural, chemical and physical properties of the materials of cultural heritage, as well as for diagnostic investigation in this field. The main objective of the teaching course is focused on the formation of experts in the characterization, conservation and fraud prevention in the field of Cultural Heritage.

In terms of knowledge and ability, the teaching course allows the student to acquire the knowledge and scientific expertise about the structure and properties of the materials for cultural heritage and about their characterization throughout the use od advanced analytical technques. In particular, the teaching course allows the student to comprehend, interpret and use properly che main thermodynamic and kinetic diagrams that describes the structural transformation and are related to the chemical and physical properties of the materials. Such a background will make the student capable of predicting potential structural transformations related to the production and usage of artifacts, and understanding which analytical/diagnostic tools are required to investigate such properties. The teaching course provides the student the scientific bases and the proper language for the comprehension of scientific papers related with the materials for cultural heritage, providing the ability to evaluate critically the more recent scientific studies in this field.

Knowledge and comprehension:
- structure of the materials for cultural heritage
- advanced techniques for diagnostic in materials for the cultural heritage
- elaboration and interpretation of experimental data

Ability of applying knowledge and comprehension:
- expertise in the characterization of materials for the cultural heritage
- expertise in diagnostics
- expertise in critical evaluation of the scientific procedures and analytical techniques suitable for the characterization of materials

Basic knowledge in organic and inorganic chemistry, physics of solid state and maths.

The teaching course is organized in three main macro-sections dedicated to specific groups of materials. Each macro-section firstly introduces the chemical-structural propertires of the materials in order to define the possible diagnostic targets. Then, the advanced analytical techniques suitable to respond to the corresponding diagnostic questions are explored from their principles to their application with the guidance of case-studies from the scientific literature. The specific contents of the main macro-sections are the following:
A) metallic materials: metals structure, alloys, microstructure of ancient metals, thermal treatments of metals, corrosion of metals, archaeometallurgy: elemental characterization by XRF, microstructural characterization by SEM-EDS, manostructural characterization by TEM, surface characterization by AFM, XPS and XRD, bulk elemental characterization by NAA and ICP-OES/MS;
B) glasses: glasses structure, glasses properties, glasses provenance by elemental and isotopic analysis
C) ceramics: structure and properties, pottery provenance, pottery mineralogical characterization by FTIR and Raman microscopy, pottery organic residues characterization by GC-MS and LC-MS.
The laboratory consists into a practical applicative case study focused on the multi-tecnique characterization of a metal artifact, and additional experiences on the analysis of glasses, metals and/or pottery by other techniques introduced troughout the theoretical part of the course. An extra section is also dedicated to the elaboration of the archeometric data obtained during the laboratory and other datasets from the literature, with introduction and application of multivariate analysis by using dedicated softwares.

Lecture notes, slides, scientific publications as case studies provided by the teacher.

The exam consists in an oral discussion.

Classroom lessons and laboratory activity.

English

oral