Amorce 2020 projects

The aim of this project is to apply a cross-archaeological, geomorphological and archaeo-geophysical approach to characterize the paleoenvironmental contexts that affected the evolution of the Great Pyramids harbors ca. 4500 years ago. To reveal the main stages in the history of the ports, the focus will be on understanding the factors of change, more specifically (i) the evolution of the swamps and wetlands of the floodplains at the foot of the Giza plateau; (ii) fluvial constraints (cf. catastrophic floods, sedimentary crises, etc.), which have led to the silting-up of port basins and caused a break in sedimentary sequences or abrupt changes; (iii) the impacts of human actions (direct, such as engineering works, channelization and dredging, or indirect impacts
such as clearing of riparian forests). Understanding the environmental and anthropogenic factors in the evolution of the ports of Giza - and its network of canals linked to the Nile - will constitute an essential scientific advance for a better understanding of the construction processes of the Great Pyramids and the ecological and h drological trajectory of the ports in terms of navigability.

Partner(s):

• National Research Institute of Astronomy & Geophysics (Hellwan - Egypt)

Granite column shafts were an emblematic component of Roman architecture from the end of the 1st century AD onwards. The main sources distributed throughout the Mediterranean were Turkey, Egypt, the Tuscan islands and Sardinia. Local sources considered little or non-exported have also been identified in Spain, Corsica and the Maghreb. The application of a new, more reliable protocol for identifying these sources by site, by geographical entity and by period may provide new insights into the history of connections and exchanges in the Mediterranean and, more broadly, in Europe and the Middle East. The aims of this project are: 1. to identify the origins of materials, whether imported or of local origin; 2. to work from a diachronic perspective, focusing on the question of late-antique, medieval and modern reuse in France, compared with Italy, Spain and the Maghreb.

The Aegina Port City 2019-2023 project is part of the Centre Camille-Jullian's maritime archaeological research programs. It also falls within IRAA's field of expertise in monumental architectural analysis and restitution. It is also characterized by its interdisciplinarity, the aim being to study diachronically the port and coastal installations of the maritime city of Aegina (Aegean Sea, Greece) from the 6th century BC to the end of the Byzantine era.

It is based on an official collaboration between the Greek Ministry of Culture's Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, the Centre Camille Jullian and the École française d'Athènes, and is the first collaborative underwater archaeology program by a French university in the Aegean archipelago. It forms part of the scientific program of the École française d'Athènes, as it is one of the eight annual grants awarded to the institution by the Greek government, and is also part of the "Sharing the Sea" research program run by the Centre Camille Jullian (Program 2: Coastal Spaces).

The project has four main objectives:

• Interdisciplinary research in coastal and underwater archaeology;
• Innovative - even experimental - data acquisition techniques and methods, particularly topographical and architectural;
• Training the next generation of maritime archaeologists in the Mediterranean, with the establishment of an international training camp;
• Enhancing the value of the site by developing new approaches to underwater and coastal archaeology in the Mediterranean and Internationally.
  

Partner(s):

• Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities (Ministry of Culture - Greece)
• French School of Athens
• University of Patras (Greece)
• National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece)
• Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Mainz - Germany)
• Istituto superiore per la conservazione e il restauro (Rome - Italy)
• University of Peloponnese (Tripoli - Greece)

The vast majority of the material unearthed during excavations is ceramic, but it is often difficult to assign a definite provenance to a piece of pottery, except in the relatively rare cases where the production workshops are known. Faced with these uncertainties, archaeologists often call on the help of archaeometers to go beyond visual observations. The C3X project aims to produce 10 chemical calibration kits for ceramics of various origins, measured using portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF). This project is rooted in the pXRF user network (IRN-CNRS pXRFCUN project). Each of these kits will comprise 15 ceramics in the form of fusion discs (beads), accompanied by the corresponding analytical results and statistics. These results will be obtained using conventional methods (ICP-MS & OES, laboratory XRF) and pXRF. Each kit user will then be able to refer to these values to inter-calibrate his or her own instrument, so that results obtained in the various network partner laboratories will be comparable. The kits will be accompanied by a guide describing the protocols used and the ceramics selected. C3X will also be used to produce educational documents for archaeologists and archaeometers, notably as part of the Céramopôle and A*MIDEX TRIADS projects.