A database for historical pigments through handheld instrumentation

Portable instrumentation is largely used in archaeometry for in-field measurements at museums and archaeological sites. The historic evolution of pigments is closely related to the technology developments in past cultures and provides relevant clues regarding their knowledge advancement. Here, a systematic study of 26 historical powdered pigments was carried out through a combined handheld instrumentation for X-ray Fluorescence. Chemical identification was carried out through a set of instrumentation produced by different manufacturers. Their performances are compared on the same set of samples to identify best practices for the study of historical pigments. A database of organic and inorganic pigments studied by additional techniques such as Fiber optics Reflectance spectra (FORS), Raman and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) is under development with the aim to use it further for the interpretation of the results of real case studies.