Lupa Capitolina: Novità?

The results of the latest study on the Capitoline She-Wolf are in: a Medieval (12th-13th c. CE) copy of an Etruscan original. Edilberto Formigli and others will present their research in a conference on the Capitoline tomorrow, 22 June 2012.
[Officina Archeologica (with program); Adnkronos]

Etruscan 4 and 6

The authors of a forthcoming article in Archaeometry use a new approach to assign values to the ambiguous Etruscan words sa and huth (4 and 6, respectively). The abstract follows:

The graphical and linguistic interpretation of the first six Etruscan numerals has long been confronted with the ambiguous assignment of the words huth and sa to either 4 or 6. Here, we show how the systematic combinatorial analysis of the numerals appearing on ancient southern Etrurian dice dated from the eighth to the third centuries bc, together with the careful comparison of the results with the only two existing dice carrying the alphabetical translations of the numerals conserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, finally allows unambiguous mathematical resolution of the linguistic riddle, allowing the firm attribution of the numeral 6 to the graphical value huth and 4 to sa. Combinatorial analysis of the numerals distribution on the six faces of the die shows that only two of the 15 possible numerical combinations were actually in use in southern Etruria, and that during the fifth century bc there was a marked shift from the typical (1–2, 3–4, 5–6) combination used in the early seventh- to fifth-century bc dice to the (1–6, 2–5, 3–4) combination used at later times and still largely adopted today. The largest body of archaeometric data on dice specimens from Etruria is presented, based on macroscopic examination, X-ray diffraction, DRIFT spectroscopy and density measurements.

Artioli, G., Nociti, V. and Angelini, I. (2011), Gambling with Etruscan Dice: A Tale of Numbers and Letters. Archaeometry. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4754.2011.00596.x

Journal available: Periodico di Mineralogia

I note the online presence of the Periodico di Mineralogia, "an international journal of mineralogy, crystallography, geochemistry, ore deposits, petrology, volcanology, and applied topics on environment, archaeometry and cultural heritage," based at La Sapienza. There's no explicit statement of open access, but all the issues from 1999 to 2010 are freely downloadable.

The journal's page is located at http://tetide.geo.uniroma1.it/riviste/permin/permin.html - click on "Issues Year xxxx" in the right hand column to access the issues.

A sampling of articles (all in English, by editorial policy) from 2010 include:

• Belfiore et al., "Western production of “Ionian cups of type B2”: a preliminary archaeometric study to identify workshops in eastern Sicily,"
• De Bonis et al., "Archaeometric study of roman pottery from Caudium area (Southern Italy),"
• De Francesco et al., "Preliminary chemical characterization of Roman glass from Pompeii,"
• B. Giammartini, "Mapping of the stones in the main façade of St. Giuliana castle (Umbertide, Italy),"
• Kastenmeier et al., "The source of stone building materials from the Pompeii archaeological area and its surroundings"
• Miriello et al., "Colour and composition of nodules from the Calabrian clay deposits: a possible raw material for pigments production in Magna Graecia,"
• Scarpelli et al., "Archaeometric study of sub-geometric pottery found in Potenza, Italy: relationship and trade between near indigenous centers," and
• Tucci et al., "Italica (Seville, Spain): use of local marble in Augustan age."