New Project! Colours Revealed – Polychromy Of Roman Monuments In The Danube Provinces (Polychromon)
The Polychromon project, based at the Austrian Archaeological Institute, aims at a comprehensive investigation of the polychromy of Roman stone artefacts in the Noric-Pannonian region. In interdisciplinary cooperation, aspects such as polychromy as a means of visual design, ancient colour symbolism or the use of different painting techniques will be investigated. A special research focus is on objects of the Mithras cult from Carnuntum and the Vienna Basin and the significance of colour in a religious and ritual context.
The aim of the material-analytical investigations is to detect the remains of pigments that were once applied, even if they are barely or no longer visible to the naked eye. Supplemented by classical methods of light and electron microscopy, the focus is on non-invasive methods. In addition to digitisation and modelling, primarily multi- and hyperspectral analyses, light spectroscopic methods and X-ray fluorescence analysis are used. Exploring the possibilities and limitations of current techniques is an integral part of the project, as is the development of new methods.
The project crosses archaeological and chemical-physical data and combines scientific and cultural-historical questions in order to open up new fields of research and of application for monument conservation, museology and knowledge transfer.
Principal investigators:
Gabrielle Kremer (coordinator), OeAW
Robert Linke, Federal Monuments Authority Austria
Georg Plattner, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien
Eduard Pollhammer, Collections of the Provincial Government of Lower Austria
Team:
Robert Krickl (OeAW)
Nirvana Silnovic (OeAW)
Marina Brzakovic (Archäologisches Museum Carnuntinum)
Funding:
OeAW | Heritage Science Austria, 2021–2025
More information here.
Added: 04/03/2022.
