The Technology of Capturing Color: Complementary Analyses of Pigment Cakes and Chalks

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Coloring the World: People and Colors in Southwestern Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The brilliant range of colors seen on painted media in the U.S. Southwest represents only one stage in an intricate sequence required to make paint. Capturing color from the natural world, harnessing it into a palette, and incorporating it into the material cultural repertoire represents a skillset with deep roots. The ability to make a good paint requires knowledge of geologic sources, processing, and application techniques that is severely understudied. While much attention is afforded to painted objects, less has been done to consider the pigment cakes or chalks that are prepared in advance of painting objects. Pigment specimens reflect the initial stages of combining pigments with binders and a liquid vehicle. Few have ventured to investigate the diversity of semi-prepared materials needed for a paint recipe. Despite their perceived rarity, decades of archaeological recovery have resulted in a large assemblage. This paper summarizes the results of the analysis of over 400 specimens recovered from across the U.S. Southwest. A combination of analytical techniques including microscopy, XRF, FTIR, Raman spectroscopy were employed to investigate the colors represented in semi-processed pigment specimens, the results of which shed light on the spatial, temporal, and technological diversity of approaches to capturing color.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Coloring the World: People and Colors in Southwestern Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24246