Investigating Colour in Aegean Late Bronze Age societies using Scientific Analysis to Provenance glass and to improve public engagement with Science

我的项目将是第一个研究爱琴海青铜时代晚期玻璃和壁画中颜色意义的项目，主要是通过对玻璃的科学分析和与当代壁画中使用的颜料进行比较。我将从迈锡尼世界的一系列背景（即家庭，仪式和葬礼）中调查色素和颜料的来源，从希腊大陆的中心地带到其外围，如多德卡尼斯。这将有助于在各种情况下使用颜色的社会/仪式价值，并调查人们愿意去获取颜色的程度。此外，玻璃和色素的来源将发展对更广泛的青铜器时代贸易和交换网络的现有知识，并首次为大量迈锡尼玻璃样品提供急需的敏感化学指纹，创造新的生产和供应模式。我还将合成各种颜色和色调的“迈锡尼”植物灰玻璃，以研究不同比例的金属着色剂（如铜、钴、铁）对最终颜色的影响，为着色过程的潜在控制提供新的见解。在整个项目中，我将努力吸引和鼓励公众对实验考古学的兴趣，以及科学在考古学中的应用。我的项目建立在我的本科和硕士论文的基础上，这两篇论文都集中在迈锡尼玻璃上。我的本科毕业论文，我获得了75%的分数，研究了迈锡尼玻璃的颜色，并展示了迈锡尼模塑玻璃工艺品上的图案与所使用的颜色之间的联系。我的硕士论文集中研究了罗德岛（大英博物馆）和克里特岛（阿什莫尔博物馆，申请中）的青铜时代晚期玻璃。为此，我将研究与贸易和颜色有关的化学成分，以便更清楚地了解玻璃在青铜时代爱琴海的作用。为了准备我的博士学位，我已经开始调查博物馆的相关和可访问的藏品。我还将寻求加深与英国博物馆和阿什莫尔博物馆在我的本科和硕士研究期间建立的持续合作。我在诺丁汉大学纳米中心接受了电子探针技术和扫描电子显微镜的使用培训。

My project will be the first to investigate the significance of colour in Aegean Late Bronze Age glass and frescoes, primarily through scientific analysis of glass and comparisons with pigments used in contemporary frescoes. I will investigate the provenance of colourants and pigments from a range of contexts (i.e. domestic, ritual and burial) within the Mycenaean world, from the heartland on mainland Greece to its periphery such as the Dodecanese. This will contribute to the social/ritual values of colour used across a varied range of contexts and investigate the extent to which people were willing to go to acquire colour. Furthermore, the provenance of both glass and colourants will develop current knowledge on the wider Bronze Age trade and exchange networks and provide a much-needed sensitive chemical fingerprint for a significant number of Mycenaean glass samples for the first time, creating new patterns of production and supply. I will also synthesise 'Mycenaean' plant ash glasses of a variety of colours and hues to investigate the effects that different proportions of metal colorants (e.g. copper, cobalt, iron) had on the final colour achieved, providing new insights into the potential control of colouring processes. Throughout the project, I will seek to engage and encourage public interest in experimental archaeology the application of science to archaeology.My project builds upon my undergraduate and master's dissertations which both focused on Mycenaean glass. My undergraduate dissertation, for which I received 75%, examined colour in Mycenaean glass and showed a link between motifs on Mycenaean moulded glass artefacts and the colours used. My master'sdissertation is a focused study on the late Bronze Age glass from Rhodes (British Museum) and Crete (Ashmolean Museum, application pending). For that, I will be looking at the chemical composition in relation to trade and colour in order to build a clearer picture of the role of glass in the Bronze Age Aegean. In preparation for my PhD, I have begun to investigate museums for relevant and accessible collections. I will also seek to deepen an ongoing collaboration with both the British and Ashmolean Museums established during the research for my undergraduate and masters research. I have received training in the use of both the Electron Microprobe technique and Scanning Electron Microscopy at the Nano Centre at the University of Nottingham.