May 2021 - KU LEUVEN Iron Isotopes Lecture

Iron Isotopes 600

We are happy to invite you to the online lecture by dr. Jean Milot (ENS de Lyon) on

“Iron isotopes for ancient iron tracing: the example of Roman production in southern France”.

Abstract: The finding of several Roman shipwrecks offshore the city of Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (Southern France) was a major archaeological discovery of the 1990s. Many of them, dated between the 1st century B.C. and the 1st century A.D., contained large quantities of iron bars, offering an exceptional open window on the Roman iron trade in the western Mediterranean. In the present study, we used Fe isotopes analyses to investigate the provenance of these bars. Our results, compared to more conventional trace element analyses, allowed us to identify several groups of bars of distinct provenance and provided crucial information on the nature of their corresponding ore sources. Overall, this study demonstrates that combined trace element and Fe isotopes analyses in a well-defined archaeological context is a promising approach for ancient iron tracing.

The seminar will take place on Wednesday 26 May, at 4 pm (Brussels CET) – 5 pm (Nicosia EET).

This seminar is part of a series entitled “Provenance and technology – separate research fields or intimately entangled? Current perspectives on inorganic materials analysis in EMME archaeology”.

The series is organized as part of ‘PROMISED: Promoting Archaeological Science in the eastern Mediterranean’, an H2020 Twinning project (Grant No 811068).

The seminar is open to all and can be accessed through the following MS Teams link:
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We hope you can join us and look forward to welcoming you!

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Promised project website: https://promisedtwinning.cyi.ac.cy/

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