Documenting the light sensitivity of Spanish Levantine rock art paintings

Abstract

ABSTRACT:A case study to evaluate the use of microfading spectrometry (MFS) for the study of colored systems found in prehistoric rock art paintings was conducted in the Cova Remígia rock-shelter, Castellón (Spain). This rock shelter is part of the rock art sites of the Mediterranean basin on the Iberian Peninsula included in UNESCO's World Heritage List. Some of the paintings belonging to this group are exposed to environmental factors including natural daylight, wind and rain, depending on the time of the day and the season of the year. Therefore, their preservation is a major concern to stakeholders and researchers responsible for protecting and studying these prehistoric paintings. The experimental work in Cova Remigia focused on measuring the reflectance curves (400-700 nm) and determining the photostability of various areas containing red and black pigments on the rock art paintings. The preliminary results indicate that MFS is a suitable technique for studying the response to light of rock/pigment systems found in rock art sites. The advantages and limitations of the technique are discussed.

Lightfastness assessment of Levantine rock art by means of microfading spectrometry

“…The measured points were different from those measured in Ref. ; they were not found in the same panel and the number of samples increased ×6 in order to get a bigger corpus of data despite the difficulty of measuring on site in the shelter.…”

“…In addition, it is being studied in several research projects to document and determine right preservation measures at different levels . Molada‐Tebar et al employed rigorous colorimetric techniques to record properly the color of rock art paintings using digital photography . del Hoyo‐Meléndez et al studied the photostability of a couple of areas containing red and black pigments on a rock art scene and revealed how useful the physical information about the photostability of a pigment is for better understanding of archeological sites.…”

“…Therefore, it can be considered a useful technique for studying the surface characteristics and the radiation behavior of the features. In recent years, the study of pigments has become more relevant since it is possible to know about the chemical composition, the origin of materials, the preparation of mixtures, and the photostability of the pigments . Thanks to the research of some authors on the characterization of Levantine rock art pigments today, we know more about the pigments used for this type of paintings.…”

“…The main objective of this study is to analyze the impact of direct solar irradiation in the Cova Remígia rock art paintings by undertaking in situ lightfastness measurements by means of the MFT technique. Previous campaigns revealed that the paintings receive direct sunlight around 2‐3 hours daily, early in the morning, depending on the time of the year . For this purpose, black/red painted areas and their surroundings were selected in order to obtain reliable data from the pigmented zones.…”

Development of a platform recommending 3D and spectral digitisation strategies

“…Wefers & Cramer, 2015;Del Hoyo-Meléndez, Lerma, López-Montalvo, & Villaverde, 2015). In many cases this collaborative work first has to tackle communication difficulties which mainly evolve from domain inherent terminologies (Murphy, Bentkowska-Kafel, & Wefers, in prep.).…”