Vorträge - Universität Salzburg

Abstracts Primus Conventus Austriacus Archaeometriae - MMIX
Austrian marbles and their importance in European archaeology and art –
Applications of MissMarble database
Judit Zöldföldi 1 , Balázs Székely 2 & Péter Hegedüs
1
Universität Tübingen, Inst. für Geowissenschaften, Wilhelmstr. 56, D-72074 Tübingen, +49-(0)707129-73159,
zoeldfoeldi@yahoo.de
2
Technische Universität Wien, Balazs.Szekely@ipf.tuwien.ac.at
A comprehensive study was carried out to achieve descriptive data on several Austrian
(especially Carinthian and Styrian) marble quarries for provenance studies. Some 80 samples
were investigated by petrographic thin sections, X-ray diffraction, microprobe and
quantitative textural analysis, 13 C,
18 O,
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87 Sr/ 86 Sr isotope geochemistry, and
cathodoluminescence. The results were integrated into the MissMarble database, an
interdisciplinary, internet-based database for marble provenancing. The database incorporates
also the primary description, analytical results, spectra, and photos of the samples,
information on the locality and the geological setting of the quarries.
The corresponding data of MissMarble database highlight the importance of Austrian marbles
in archaeology and art history: objects that are presumably originating of Austrian quarries
continuously increasing. 60 objects of the Hungarian National Museum of outstanding artistic
qualities from the 1 st to 3 rd century A.D. are mostly from Gummern, some of them from
Treffen and Spitzelofen. For further 20 samples of Savaria (a Roman city of Pannonia, today
Szombathely, Hungary) Gummern and/or Treffen provenance is most likely, but there are
some from Puppitsch or Tiffen. Furthermore, 54 marble sculptures of Stuttgart from the 19 th
century were also analysed. Although it was assumed that these objects were made of Carrara
marble, we could demonstrate that the raw material of at least 9 statuaries stemmed from
Gummern.