UCL Institute of Archaeology

Institute students and staff recently participated in the 39th International Symposium on Archaeometry (ISA2012) in Leuven, the largest and most important archaeological science conference in the calendar.      

The Symposium aims to promote the development and use of scientific techniques in order to extract archaeological and historical information from the cultural heritage and the paleoenvironment. It involves all Natural Sciences and all types of objects and materials related with human activity.

Three staff members and thirteen research students took part in the event in Belgium to mark 50 years of the ISA. Among them, they presented seven oral presentations and six posters showcasing their research on metals, ceramics, glass and glazes while Thilo Rehren convened the session on Metals and Metallurgical Ceramics.

The papers given highlighted the diversity of research at the Institute of Archaeology, covering topics including early metallurgy in Europe and the Near East, the weapons of the Chinese Terracotta Army or the elite ceramics that followed the so-called “Maya collapse”. Geographically, the research presented included work in Serbia, China, India, Tanzania, Bulgaria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Belize, England and Thailand, on archaeological sites spanning some 7000 years.

Also in attendance were a number of past students of the MSc in the Technology and Analysis of Archaeological Materials, making UCL by far the largest academic contingent among the 400 conference delegates.

Oral presentations

• Loïc Boscher: Arsenical copper in Southwest Asia: Alloying technology and intentionality determined by the chemical analysis of production remains
• Kristina A. Franke: The metallurgical inventory from Tell Chuera (Syria) – a direct comparison between qualitative pXRF and quantitative WDS data
• Marcos Martinón-Torres: Making weapons for the Terracotta Army: Technology, standardisation and logistics
• Miljana Radivojević: The emergence of tin bronzes c. 7000 years ago
• Maninder Singh Gill: Technical studies on medieval Islamic glazed tiles from Northern India
• Carmen Ting: Life goes on: Understanding the craft organization and economy of Early Postclassic Maya Lowlands through the analysis of Zakpah pottery from Marco Gonzalez, Ambergis Caye, Belize
• Ian Freestone: Red window glass in the Medieval period: Rediscovery of a lost technology

Posters

• Anastasia Cholakova: Producing Black Glass During The Roman Period (Notes On A Crucible Fragment From Serdica, Bulgaria)
• Ruth Fillery-Travis: Variation In Roman Period Iron Smelting: A Case Study In Southwest England
• Siran Liu: Copper Processing In Oasis Sites Of Northwest Arabia. The Evidence From Tayma And Qurayyah
• Edwinus Lyaya: High Carbon Steel And Cast Iron in Africa: Reality or Myth?
• Frederik Rademakers: Ancient Urban Copper Metallurgy in Qantir (Pi-Ramesses)
• Pira Venunan: The 9th Century Blooming Iron Smelting in Northeast Thailand: A Case Study from Ban Kruat, Burirum Province