Provenance Determination and Condition Assessment of Archaeological Marble Statues from Gerasa Using Non-Destructive Ultrasonic Technique

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to assign the provenance of Roman marble statues and assess their condition in order to use this information as a guideline for their future conservation treatments. Several analytical methods were applied to investigate the provenance of the statues including petrography, X-ray diffraction, and mass spectrometry. The deterioration level of the statues was assessed by non-destructive ultrasonic velocity measurements. The provenance investigation showed that four statues were most probably made of the dolomitic marble quarried from Thasos Island, Greece and one statue was made of the Proconnesus marble quarried from Marmara Island, Turkey. The condition assessment study revealed that the statutes are still in a good condition, although they exhibit weathering in the form of increasing porosity. Consequently, suitable conservation measures and recommendations for preserving the marble statues and preventing future damage were proposed. In general, the ultrasonic technique proved to be effective for assessing marble condition and identifying and prioritizing required conservation work in a fast, reliable, and non-destructive way.

KEYWORDS:

• Marble statues
• provenance
• ultrasonic technique
• condition assessment
• Gerasa
• Jordan

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Department of Antiquities of Jordan (DoA) for the permission to study the marble statues.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a research grant [grant number 2/2015] of the Deanship of Research and Graduate Studies at Yarmouk University, Jordan.