2024

How was an ancient Mediterranean ship built? How did they sail? These are the themes addressed in the "All aboard - Discovering ancient naval archaeology" workshop. Using virtual reality and physical models, visitors can dive on a sewn Bronze Age shipwreck, discover the hold and deck of a 6th century BC ship, assemble planks like a real shipwright and, in the end, build their own miniature ancient ship.

We are a team of teacher-researchers at the University of Aix-Marseille, and we have been working on medieval manuscripts for the past ten years, using an interdisciplinary approach (literature & chemistry) that has enabled us to remove many of the grey areas surrounding these ancient objects. Our work initially focused on the Méjanes 1800 manuscript, which contains Petrarch's text Les Remèdes de l'une et l'autre Fortune, in its translation by Jean Daudin. We then studied the manuscript tradition of this text, which led us to carry out missions to Chantilly, Vienna (Austria) and Dresden (Germany): this new research enabled us to learn more about the commissioners of these manuscripts and the miniatures contained in these pages. The initial conclusions of this Research have been put into play in a digital escape game, L'Affaire Pétrarque - Codex et Info(x), with the help of AMU's scientific culture unit, to be completed in 2023. We would now like to present all our Research results in situ, on the very site where our original manuscript is located, a manuscript that would be exhibited at the center of our scenario.

The aim of the project is to carry out an integrated study (micropalaeontology, facies analysis, diagenesis, geochemistry) of the limestones of protohistoric sculptures from the Roquepertuse and La Cloche oppidums (Musée d'Histoire de Marseille). Samples will be taken from the works themselves, as well as from similar outcropping limestones, for microscopic thin sections and isotopic measurements (carbon and oxygen). Petrographic analysis of the thin sections and fieldwork will be carried out as part of an M1 STPE research internship. The aim is 1) to identify extraction sites and material supply circuits, 2) to understand the criteria that led to the choice of materials and 3) to identify robust limestone characterization criteria to help in the reconstruction of sculptures and the search for substitute materials.

Partner(s):

• Musée d'histoire de Marseille
• Interdisciplinary Center for Heritage Conservation and Restoration (CICRP - Marseille)
• Musée Granet (Aix-en-Provence)
• PACA Regional Archaeology Service
• Center des monuments nationaux

Metal seals are characteristic elements of public architecture in ancient Greece. The aim of this project is to set up a research teams bringing together archaeologists, architects and metal scientists to develop a methodology for analyzing these artifacts still in place at archaeological sites, particularly Delphi and Delos.

The ultimate aim, as part of a wider project, will be to provide information on the composition, strength and origin of the metal used in these staples, in relation to the archaeological data available for the buildings studied. This research will help complete a chrono-typological inventory of sealings in the architecture of these two sites.

Partner(s):

• Musée du Louvre (Paris)
• École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Strasbourg (France)

This project will consist of an analysis mission at the Rennes library. The aim will be to begin characterizing a richly illuminated manuscript from the late 15th century, based on paleographic, codicological and physico-chemical studies. This work would thus enrich the corpus we have studied to date.

Our Research is based on a global approach to the manuscript, which is studied as a historical witness, a textual support and a material object. In this way, we aim to shed new light on the organization of Parisian illuminators' workshops in the second half of the 15th century. Such an approach requires close interdisciplinary collaboration between the humanities and materials sciences, i.e. between medievalists and chemists.

Partner(s):

• Interdisciplinary Center for Heritage Conservation and Restoration (CICRP - Marseille)
• Laboratory of Molecular and Structural Archaeology (LAMS - Paris)
• Néel Institute (Grenoble)

The project aims to bring together a team of historians, archaeologists, palynologists and chemists to work on traditional beekeeping in the Mediterranean over the long term, and mainly in the ancient and medieval periods. By combining field, archival and laboratory research on the practice of beekeeping in terracotta hives, the aim is to be able to set up protocols that will enable us to work on the environment in which this beekeeping was practiced.

Partner(s):

• Institute for Research and Studies on the Arab and Muslim World (IREMAM - Aix-en-Provence)

The project is a continuation of previous inventory campaigns, and a necessary complement to the creation of as complete a catalog as possible of granite column shafts of ancient origin, and a map of their distribution within and beyond the Roman Empire. The combination of analysis of the geological origin of individual shafts or shaft fragments and archaeological contextualization will enable a better appreciation of secondary post-Antique movements and strategies for their re-use in the medieval and modern periods. Sicily and Calabria are particularly rich in granite shafts, with the particularity of the presence of a local quarry at Nicotera, whose visit is one of the objectives of the mission. The richness and originality of the medieval history of this area, where the vast majority of shafts are reused and transported from medieval times, allows us to address the question of the flow of prestigious materials at this time, in a major hub of Mediterranean maritime routes, in particular around the Strait of Messina.

Partner(s):

• Università di Catania (Italy)
• Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche (Pisa, Italy)
• Istituto nazionale di geofisica e vulcanologia (Rome, Italy)
• Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" (Italy)
• Università degli studi di Palermo (Italy)
• Accademia di Belle Arti di Catanzaro (Italy)

The wreck of Zambratija (Istria, Croatia) is, to date, the archaeological evidence of the oldest sewn ship in the Mediterranean, without comparison in ancient Adriatic and Mediterranean shipbuilding.

The ZADIG project aims to combine the skills of the Centre Camille Jullian and the Institut méditerranéen de biodiversité et d'écologie marine et continentale to answer the chronological questions posed by the Zambratija wreck; to test the vulnerability of this archaeological heritage; to experiment with a non-destructive method of acquiring dendrochronological data on waterlogged wood using a resistograph.

Partner(s):

• Centro di fisica applicata, datazione e diagnostica (CEDAD - Brindisi, Italy)
• Center de datation par le radiocarbone (CDRC) of the Archéologie et archéométrie laboratory (ArAr - Lyon)

The project aims to establish a chronological and methodological framework for studying the relationships between societies and water in the upper reaches of the Argens River (Var), in an area exceptional for the chronological longevity and spatial continuity of travertine formations and associated wetlands. It will combine a geomorphological approach, archaeological synthesis and surveys from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages, archival studies, characterization of the recording potential of the environmental variability of the travertines using sedimentological, paleoecological, geochemical and isotopic methods, and tests of 14C and U/Th dating methods. In this way, it will seek to reconstruct the interweaving of societal and natural factors in the construction of landscapes, the increasing weight of uses and developments of alluvial bottoms, and the resilience to environmental change of the resulting socio-hydrosystems.

Partner(s):

• Laboratoire Temps, espaces, langages, Europe méridionale, Méditerranée (TELEMMe - Aix-en-Provence)
• Center archéologique du Var (Toulon)
• Maison régionale de l'eau (Barjols)
• Syndicat mixte de l'Argens
• Municipality of Saint-Maximin

As part of the SyLitMéd program coordinated by LA3M, the SigLitMéd project aims to develop a team tool for recording and producing cartographic data at different scales, and to strengthen interdisciplinary cross-disciplinary approaches to the "historical geography" of medieval coastal areas in the north-western Mediterranean in the 8th-12th centuries. This tool will take the form of a geographic database (GIS)
based on the open-source QGIS software and accessible to all SyLitMed program participants.

The project will involve the compilation of historiographic data (coastal paleoenvironments, cartographic, cadastral, archaeological and historical sources). The operation of the GIS prototype will be tested in two privileged survey windows in Provence (Gulf of Fos / Martigues) and Roussillon (Argelès-sur-Mer / Collioure coastal area).