New approach to the differentiation of marble samples using thermal analysis and chemometrics in order to identify provenance

BACKGROUND: The possibility of applying a novel chemometric approach which could allow the differentiation of marble samples, all from different quarries located in the Mediterranean basin and frequently used in ancient times for artistic purposes, was investigated. By suggesting tentative or allowing to rule out unlikely attributions, this kind of differentiation could, indeed, be of valuable support to restorers and other professionals in the field of cultural heritage. Experimental data were obtained only using thermal analytical techniques: Thermogravimetry (TG), Derivative Thermogravimetry (DTG) and Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA). RESULTS: The extraction of kinetic parameters from the curves obtained using these thermal analytical techniques allowed Activation Energy values to be evaluated together with the logarithm of the Arrhenius pre-exponential factor of the main TG-DTG process. The main data thus obtained after subsequent chemometric evaluation (using Principal Components Analysis) have already proved useful in the identification the original quarry of a small number of archaeological marble finds. CONCLUSION: One of the most evident advantages of the thermoanalytical – chemometric approach adopted seems to be that it allows the certain identification of an unknown find composed of a marble known to be present among the reference samples considered, that is, contained in the reference file. On the other hand with equal certainty it prevents the occurrence of erroneous or highly uncertain identification if the find being tested does not belong to the reference file considered.