Exploring Pottery Function and Cooking Practices in Bronze Age Sicily: The Results of High-resolution GC-MS of Organic Residues

ABSTRACT

Despite the extended application of GC-MS for detecting organic residues from archaeological ceramics, the potential of gas chromatography – high-resolution and accuracy mass spectrometry (GC-HRAMS) has not yet been fully explored. This study conducted lipid residue analysis (using an Exactive Orbitrap GC-MS system) of dolia and jars from two Early and Middle Bronze Age (2200-1450 BC) archaeological sites in south-eastern Sicily, comparing chromatograms obtained by both GC-HRAMS and GC coupled to quadrupole, low-resolution MS (GC-LRMS). The archaeological question aimed at verifying the use of the selected vessels for cooking purposes and exploring hypotheses concerning their employment in different cooking methods (boiling or roasting) based on the analysis of morphological features and burning traces on the surfaces. The results showed clear advantages of using GC-HRAMS in targeted and untargeted approaches.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Comparison between GC-MS and GC-HRAMS
• bronze age sicily (Southern Italy) pottery
• organic residues’ analyses
• animal fats
• waxes
• natural resins

Acknowledgements

GC-HRAMS analyses were conducted at the FIXLAB node of the European Research Infrastructure (E-RIHS) located in Lecce, Italy, at CNR-ISPC. The laboratory and the PhD project of Giuseppe De Luca have been granted by MUR through the SHINE (Strengthening the Italian Node of E-RIHS) Project (PIR01_00016, PON IR 2014-2020).

Disclosure Statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Giulia Germinario

Giulia Germinario is a researcher at ISPC-CNR in Lecce (Italy). She is an expert in spectrometric and spectroscopic techniques for the analysis of painting materials and organic residues from archaeological pottery. Since 2019, she has been teaching the chemistry of pigments and binders at the Istituto Centrale del Restauro.

Giuseppe De Luca

Giuseppe De Luca received his M.S. degree in chemical sciences from the University of Bari in 2020. Since 2021, he has been pursuing a PhD at the Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Salento (Lecce, Italy), and in collaboration with CNR-ISPC (Lecce, Italy). His research interest focuses on showing the potential of a high-resolution and accuracy mass analyzer applied to case studies relating to the analysis of organic residues (ORA) in archaeology.

Thea Messina

Thea Messina is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Italian Archaeological School at Athens (SAIA). She is a researcher specialising in the social structures of ancient Mediterranean societies, focusing on material culture from the Bronze Age. She holds degrees from Universities in Catania and Konya (Turkey), with a specialisation from the Italian Archaeological School at Athens, culminating in a PhD on Bronze Age cooking practices.

Saverio Scerra

Saverio Scerra is an archaeologist at the Department of Cultural Heritage - Superintendency of Ragusa - Section for Archaeological Heritage (Sicily).

Giuseppe Egidio De Benedetto

Giuseppe Egidio De Benedetto is associate Professor of analytical chemistry at cultural heritage department of Salento university.

Costanza Miliani

Costanza Miliani earned her PhD (1999) in chemical sciences at the University of Perugia, and the Executive Master of Business Administration (2019) in Management of Research Infrastructures from the University of Milan-Bicocca. She is the principal investigator of regional, national and European research projects in the Heritage Science field, Costanza Miliani is currently director of the ISPC-CNR and coordinator of the European mobile platform MOLAB and coordinator of the Italian E-node RIHS.