Alejandro MitraniUniversidad Nacional Autónoma de México | UNAM · Department of Experimental Physics
Alejandro Mitrani
Ph.D.
https://www.fisica.unam.mx/es/personal.php?id=626
About
26
Publications
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113
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Citations since 2017
Introduction
Education
August 2012 - June 2017
February 2009 - July 2011
August 2003 - June 2008
Publications
Publications (26)
This Open Access publication has been conceived as a work manual meant for the researchers and students of Mexican prehistory, an indispensable tool for the analysis and comprehension of the manufacture techniques and morphological-functional spectrum of the Pleistocene flaked stone instruments discovered at Chiquihuite Cave, Zacatecas, Mexico. Thi...
According to historical sources, yellow colorants have been used since ancient times; despite this, their identification in textiles, Mesoamerican codices and other colonial documents is still a difficult task to perform. Most of the analytical techniques traditionally employed in the identification of yellow dyes, like HPLC-mass spectrometry, requ...
Purísima Concepción, a large-format and unusual panel painting attributed to the 18th century, based on style and the common aspect of the visual tradition of the Virgin Mary found in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, is sheltered at the Museo Ex-convento San Agustín Acolman-INAH, Mexico, an institution opened in late 1920, and one of the oldest museum...
Archaeologists favoring top-down political economy have proposed how political elites controlled the exploitation, production, and distribution of obsidian in different ways. This framework can be traced to a Marxist Asiatic mode of production model, related to the control of a resource by the ruling elite. The reality is that independent-domestic...
Adobe masonry is one of the oldest construction systems still in use today, Mexico has an enormous cultural heritage with traditional adobe houses being very representative of the rural communities and their culture. The 2017 Puebla Earthquake on September 19th struck the country causing the loss, destruction, and damage of historic buildings in se...
Techinantitla building complex, in the Amanalco neighborhood of the ancient city of Teotihuacan, is famous for the iconography and quality of the mural paintings found in this site. A significant part of this heritage has been lost due to looting. In recent years, an interdisciplinary research project was developed to study the limited patrimony th...
Capacha is one of the two earliest ceramic complexes known for western Mexico. It dates to a period when sociopolitical complexity was starting to develop in Mesoamerica. An understanding of Capacha pottery technology and production are therefore valuable windows into a critical moment of Mesoamerican cultural development. In this paper we analyze...
Entre los años 1960 y 1970, sobre todo en México, el fibrocemento o asbesto cemento fue un material utilizado por importantes muralistas como Messeguer, Benedetto, Flores y Siqueiros. El reto de conservación de este tipo de soporte radica en las problemáticas derivadas de su manufactura y del riesgo a la salud que representa una vez deteriorado; po...
This paper presents a combination of noninvasive techniques for the study of superimposed painting stages in The Pentecost, a Mexican Colonial panel painting attributed to Baltasar de Echave Orio (1558 – 1619). The application of reflected hyperspectral imaging (HSI) analysis for mapping the distribution of the pigments in the paint surface and the...
Despite being one of the largest complexes at Teotihuacan, Plaza de las Columnas has been one of the least studied. Recent archaeological discoveries by the Project Plaza de las Columnas Complex revealed that its inhabitants maintained an evident relationship with the Mayan area. The methodology employed consisted first of a surface examination of...
Almost three hundred Spanish colonial missions—or their remains—are scattered over the vast state of Chihuahua in northern Mexico. A few of them still display painted decorations on the wood ceilings and walls. The decorated areas vary greatly, from the whole ceiling of the main aisle to just a few square meters in a lateral chapel, and so does the...
An interdisciplinary and multi-institutional group of science and art conservation specialists has provided new insight into the painting materials used in the polychrome walls and wooden ceilings in four seventeenth century Spanish colonial churches of Nueva Vizcaya (Chihuahua, Mexico). A multi-analytical study of the decorative surfaces was perfo...
This research deals with the use of Mexican Politec® acrylic artist paint, with its creator, José Gutiérrez, and with Gunter Gerzso's (a non-figurative painter) application of this acrylic medium in his work. Gutiérrez worked at a synthetic painting manufacturer laboratory in New Jersey during the 1930s. He was part of the Siqueiros New York Experi...
This work presents a non-invasive material study of the Red Queen's funerary offering via in situ infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopies for mineral identification, and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) for elemental characterization. A second non-destructive laboratory stage on the main mask of the offering only was carried out by particle i...
In pre‐Hispanic Mesoamerica, pigments and dyes were used in the elaboration of a large variety of colored objects. Obtaining information regarding the objects' material composition is useful in restoration and preservation processes, as well as for recovering knowledge of its production technology and the context and history of the object. Yellow c...
A burial and a rich offering were found under Room 2 in the Murals Building, Bonampak, a Mayan archaeological site situated in Chiapas, Mexico. This burial may be related with the creation of the famous mural paintings. A rich set of jewelry made of green stones was among the different objects found. Green stones have great importance in Mesoameric...
The present paper proposes a methodology that complies with the requirements of identifying and characterizing jadeite (and its associated minerals) for archaeological studies, avoiding the acquisition of samples and ensuring the integrity of the object. The methodology exploits a carefully selected array of techniques (optical microscopy, UV fluor...
El exconvento de las Carmelitas Descalzas, hoy conocida como Santa Teresa la Antigua, es una edificación novohispana de la Ciudad de México que posee una gran fortuna historiográfica relacionada con los eventos de creación y modificación del inmueble desde el siglo XVII hasta la actualidad, y en con especial atención a la renovación de la arquitect...
Research of pre-Hispanic lime production in the Mayan area has been divided in two aspects: the study of production areas -kilns and pyres- and the study of its products -lime plasters and mortars among others-. One of the goals of our research is to characterize the structural changes of materials exposed to fire, analyzing both the combustion str...
El Carmen Monastery in Mexico City is a XVII century notable architectonic building regarding its glazed heritage. Due to their macroscopic features, historians and archaeologists have suggested that El Carmen includes a combination of tiles from distinct origins and workshops of Spain (specifically Seville) and New Spain (nowadays Mexico).
For no...
El enfoque de nuestra investigación es estudiar los cambios estructurales que sufren los materiales al exponerse al fuego, analizando tanto las estructuras productivas como las mezclas de cal provenientes de las edificaciones mayas, contribuyendo al entendimiento del proceso de creación y experimentación tecnológica realizada por la sociedad Maya p...
Jadeite was greatly appreciated by pre-Hispanic cultures in Mesoamerica. Despite its importance, knowledge of its mining sources was lost after the Spanish conquest. In the 1950s the only confirmed jadeite deposits in Mesoamerica were found in the Motagua River Fault (MRF), Guatemala. The aim of this study is to present a methodology that is approp...
Colonial panel paintings constitute an essential part of Latin-American cultural heritage. Their study is vital for understanding the manufacturing process, including its evolution in history, as well as its authorship, dating and other information significant to art history and conservation purposes. Raman spectroscopy supplies a non-destructive c...
We have measured the electron drift velocity, longitudinal diffusion, and the effective ionization coefficients in the gaseous mixture of CF3I–SF6 over the density-normalized electric field intensity E/N, from 375 to 500 Td (1 Td = 10−17 V cm2). A pulsed Townsend technique was used. Overall, the gas mixture compositions were varied from 50 to 90% C...
Projects
Projects (5)
Investigación planteada desde la perspectiva del “giro material” o los estudios sobre la materialidad del arte. Aborda la relación entre la trayectoria del sevillano Sebastián de Artega y la producción artística de los talleres activos en la ciudad de México, entre 1640 y 1652, año de la muerte del pintor. Proyecto financiado por DGAPA PAPIIT UNAM IA401019
- Estudio de cerámicas en diferentes contextos arqueológicos mediante una combinación de técnicas espectroscópicas y de imagen
- Uso de imagen hiperespectral para mapear pigmentos y discriminar materiales empleados en la manufactura de la cerámica
- Identificación y -en su caso- descripción de la pirotecnología Maya relacionada con las cerámicas (manufactura/uso)
Location and characterization of the stone, soil and clays at ancient and modern Mayan quarries and sascaberas in the states of Yucatán and Campeche.
