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The ecology and bioactivity of some Greco-Roman medicinal minerals: the case of Melos earth pigments
Mineral compounds, as pigments and therapeutics, appeared regularly in the technical and medical texts of the Greco-Roman (G-R) world. We have referred to them as ‘G-R medicinal minerals’ and we suggest that despite their seeming familiarity, there are actually many unknowns regarding their precise...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8550771/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34721705 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12520-021-01396-z |
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author | Knapp, C. W. Christidis, G. E. Venieri, D. Gounaki, I. Gibney-Vamvakari, J. Stillings, M. Photos-Jones, E. |
author_facet | Knapp, C. W. Christidis, G. E. Venieri, D. Gounaki, I. Gibney-Vamvakari, J. Stillings, M. Photos-Jones, E. |
author_sort | Knapp, C. W. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Mineral compounds, as pigments and therapeutics, appeared regularly in the technical and medical texts of the Greco-Roman (G-R) world. We have referred to them as ‘G-R medicinal minerals’ and we suggest that despite their seeming familiarity, there are actually many unknowns regarding their precise nature and/or purported pharmacological attributes. Earth pigments are part of that group. This paper presents a brief overview of our work over the past twenty years relating to: a. the attempt to locate a select number of them in the places of their origin; b. their chemical/mineralogical characterization; c. the study of their ecology via the identification of the microorganisms surrounding them; d. their testing as antibacterials against known pathogens. In the process, and to fulfil the above, we have developed a novel methodological approach which includes a range of analytical techniques used across many disciplines (mineralogy, geochemistry, DNA extraction and microbiology). This paper focuses on a select number of earth pigments deriving from the island of Melos in the SW Aegean, celebrated in antiquity for its Melian Earth, a white pigment, and asks whether they might display antibacterial activity. We demonstrate that some (but not all) yellow, green and black earth pigments do. We also show that the manner in which they were dispensed (as powders or leachates) was equally important. The results, although preliminary, are informative. Given their use since deep time, earth pigments have never lost their relevance. We suggest that the study of their ecology/mineralogy and potential bioactivity allows for a better understanding of how our perception of them, as both pigments and therapeutics, may have evolved. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8550771 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-85507712021-10-29 The ecology and bioactivity of some Greco-Roman medicinal minerals: the case of Melos earth pigments Knapp, C. W. Christidis, G. E. Venieri, D. Gounaki, I. Gibney-Vamvakari, J. Stillings, M. Photos-Jones, E. Archaeol Anthropol Sci Original Paper Mineral compounds, as pigments and therapeutics, appeared regularly in the technical and medical texts of the Greco-Roman (G-R) world. We have referred to them as ‘G-R medicinal minerals’ and we suggest that despite their seeming familiarity, there are actually many unknowns regarding their precise nature and/or purported pharmacological attributes. Earth pigments are part of that group. This paper presents a brief overview of our work over the past twenty years relating to: a. the attempt to locate a select number of them in the places of their origin; b. their chemical/mineralogical characterization; c. the study of their ecology via the identification of the microorganisms surrounding them; d. their testing as antibacterials against known pathogens. In the process, and to fulfil the above, we have developed a novel methodological approach which includes a range of analytical techniques used across many disciplines (mineralogy, geochemistry, DNA extraction and microbiology). This paper focuses on a select number of earth pigments deriving from the island of Melos in the SW Aegean, celebrated in antiquity for its Melian Earth, a white pigment, and asks whether they might display antibacterial activity. We demonstrate that some (but not all) yellow, green and black earth pigments do. We also show that the manner in which they were dispensed (as powders or leachates) was equally important. The results, although preliminary, are informative. Given their use since deep time, earth pigments have never lost their relevance. We suggest that the study of their ecology/mineralogy and potential bioactivity allows for a better understanding of how our perception of them, as both pigments and therapeutics, may have evolved. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021-09-17 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8550771/ /pubmed/34721705 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12520-021-01396-z Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Original Paper Knapp, C. W. Christidis, G. E. Venieri, D. Gounaki, I. Gibney-Vamvakari, J. Stillings, M. Photos-Jones, E. The ecology and bioactivity of some Greco-Roman medicinal minerals: the case of Melos earth pigments |
title | The ecology and bioactivity of some Greco-Roman medicinal minerals: the case of Melos earth pigments |
title_full | The ecology and bioactivity of some Greco-Roman medicinal minerals: the case of Melos earth pigments |
title_fullStr | The ecology and bioactivity of some Greco-Roman medicinal minerals: the case of Melos earth pigments |
title_full_unstemmed | The ecology and bioactivity of some Greco-Roman medicinal minerals: the case of Melos earth pigments |
title_short | The ecology and bioactivity of some Greco-Roman medicinal minerals: the case of Melos earth pigments |
title_sort | ecology and bioactivity of some greco-roman medicinal minerals: the case of melos earth pigments |
topic | Original Paper |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8550771/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34721705 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12520-021-01396-z |
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