The stones of the statuary of the Egyptian Museum

Authors: A Borghi D Angelici M Borla D Castelli A d’Atri G Gariani A Lo Giudice L Martire A Re G Vaggelli

Publish Date: 2015/05/27

Volume: 26, Issue: 4, Pages: 385-398

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Abstract

A geologic and petrographic study was performed on a rich collection of statues made of stone exposed at the statuary of the Egyptian Museum of Turin NW Italy to enhance the value of this artistic heritage and set the basis for its best conservation Magmatic and sedimentary rocks were recognized Magmatic rocks with an intrusive origin are the most represented and include two main varieties Red Granite consisting of a sienogranite with porphyritic texture and pink to red Kfeldspars and Black Granite which includes granodiorite quartz diorite and tonalite lithotypes whose colour ranges from grey to almost black These magmatic rocks belong to the Arabian–Nubian shield and the historical quarries are located near Aswan The sedimentary rocks are represented by Cenozoic white limestones and red sandstones and Cretaceous darkyellow Nubian sandstones Finally we note the occurrence of the socalled Bekhen Stone originally attributed to a greenblack metagreywacke belonging to the Hammamat series of late Precambrian age outcropping in the central sector of the Eastern Desert and reinterpreted here as a massive darkgreen sandstone This paper provides a scientific classification of the artefacts exposed in the statuary rooms based on the employed materials and contributes to the enhancement of the valuable collection of stone artefacts preserved in one of the leading ancient Egyptian Museums in the worldThis contribution is the extended peer reviewed version of a paper presented at the session “Archaeometry and Cultural Heritage the contribution of Geosciences” held during the conference “The future of the Italian Geosciences the Italian Geosciences of the future” organized by the Società Geologica Italiana and the Società Italiana di Mineralogia e Petrologia Milano September 10–12 2014This study was carried out with the financial support of MIUR Italy CNRIGG UO of Torino Italy the University of Torino and Compagnia di San Paolo Bank Foundation Project “PROactive Management of GEOlogical Heritage in the PIEMONTE Region” grant to M Giardino

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