The school\u2019s objectives are to outline Molecular Archaeology as an emerging interdisciplinary field based on structural analysis at the molecular level. To examine new methodologies to reconstruct the long-term synthesis and transformation scenario of molecular and crystalline compounds used in antiquity for health and beauty. Significant advances in the analysis and structural characterisation of materials have a major impact on studies of archaeological finds. It is now important to investigate each molecule and each compound with specific information about the historical time in which they were created and used. This information must be understood in the light of archaeological data and ancient texts. We will bring together archaeologists and historians with physicists, chemists, crystallographers, biologists, pharmacists, around the topic of cosmetic-therapeutic substances. The goal would be to assess the impact of the material sciences on the history of societies. Recent advances in analytical chemistry and crystallography open new perspectives in the study of complex mixtures. A large number of cosmetic-therapeutic materials, both inorganic and organic, found in closed vessels of ancient tombs have been fully identified. In this specific study, molecular information shows that the ancients had developed from around 2000 BC, the science and technology necessary to provide these materials, such as the \u2018wet\u2019 chemical synthesis of new compounds unknown in nature. This chemical technology was followed by an art of formulation. The results could be therapeutic, but their use could also be associated with negative effects on society, such as long-term lead poisoning. New problems that emerge in the course of structural analysis and identification can often lie at the frontier of today\u2019s technologies and even at the limit of current scientific concepts. It is therefore essential to undertake fundamental research that pushes the limits of available methods. Moreover, the complexity of many materials has increased to such a degree that a single technique is not sufficient: updating and combining methodologies will be a goal in domains such as crystallography, spectroscopy, X-ray and Raman microscopy, and analytical chemistry. Original objects can also undergo their own material history at the atomic and molecular level. This history consists of alterations, reactions with other compounds or simply preservation due to exceptional circumstances that must be identified. Even if an alteration occurs, this does not imply the destruction and deletion of all information. In fact, it can happen that the genesis of a new compound still preserves the memory of significant characteristics of the original one, as illustrated by the beautiful example of mineralised tissues (slow mineral formation maintains the consistency of biological material). Modern methods can analyse the components and shedding light on the supramolecular organisation of complex materials such as wool, hair, epidermis. In this case, we must consider a \u2018fourth dimension of chemistry\u2019 measured in centuries and millennia, in order to approach the archaeological significance of the \u2018molecular messenger\u2019 we have found. This research work relies heavily on structural information at the molecular and supramolecular level. Similar progress is being made recently \u2013 or is needed \u2013 in other areas involving \u2018molecular messengers\u2019 in the long term. We strive to outline an outline of Molecular Archaeology in which future meetings could focus on DNA, food, binders and varnishes and others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The school\u2019s objectives are to outline Molecular Archaeology as an emerging interdisciplinary field based on structural analysis at the molecular level. To examine new methodologies to reconstruct the long-term synthesis and transformation scenario of molecular and crystalline compounds used in antiquity for health and beauty. Significant advances in the analysis and structural characterisation of materials […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","school_field":[34],"class_list":["post-1423","school","type-school","status-publish","hentry","school_field-humanities-and-law"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n