Rock Art Research

Vol. 36 No. 2 (2019)
Published : Nov 13, 2019

IN SEARCH OF THE ATR-FTIR SIGNATURES OF EXPERIMENTALLY MIXED INGREDIENTS PRESUMABLY USED IN PRE-HISTORIC ROCK ART

Sara Garcês (1), Hugo Gomes (2), Lydia Haddab (3), Pedro Cura (4), Pierluigi Rosina (5)

(1) Quaternary and Prehistory Group of Geosciences Centre, Portugal
(2) Quaternary and Prehistory Group of Geosciences Centre, Portugal
(3) Muséeum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) – Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, France
(4) Prehistoric Rock Art Museum and the Sacred Tagus Valley, Mação, Portugal
(5) Polytechnic Institute of Tomar, Portugal
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Abstract

In this study, a collection of 29 samples of possible pigments, binders and carrying agents were selected based on artistic considerations and analysed with ATR Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy in order to determine usable marker bands for each ingredient. It was decided to establish a preliminary and specific database for ATR-FTIR applied to pre-Historic rock art that can be compared with other existing databases and then applied and compared with data on field research.