Touch-free in situ investigation of ancient Egyptian pigments

M. Uda*, S. Sassa, K. Taniguchi, S. Nomura, S. Yoshimura, J. Kondo, N. Iskander, B. Zaghloul

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Some of the pigments painted on the Funerary Stele of Amenemhat (ca. 2000 B.C.) exhibited at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo and on the walls of the Tomb of Userhat (ca. 1450 B.C.), a rock-cut tomb in Thebes, Egypt, were investigated in situ using both a convenient home-made hand-held type of X- ray diffractometer and a commercial X-ray fluorescence spectrometer in a complementary way under touch-free conditions. CaCO3 · 3MgCO3 (huntite) was found in the white-painted parts of these two ancient monuments. An arsenic (As)-bearing phase was detected in the yellow-painted parts of the latter monument. The occurrence of huntite in Egypt has not been reported previously.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)260-263
Number of pages4
JournalNaturwissenschaften
Volume87
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2000

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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