Celestino Grifa

Celestino Grifa
Università degli Studi del Sannio | UniSannio · Department of Science and Technology (DST)

PhD

About

146
Publications
35,724
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1,931
Citations
Additional affiliations
May 2015 - August 2015
University of California, Los Angeles
Position
  • Fellow
April 2006 - present
Università degli Studi del Sannio
April 2005 - August 2005
University of Granada
Position
  • PhD Student

Publications

Publications (146)
Chapter
This study is based on the archaeometric results concerning a selection of Roman imperial coins (antoniniani) belonging to a hoard found in the Roman necropolis area in the ancient Cumae during the archaeological campaigns led by the Centre Jean Bérard. The primary objective of the investigation was to analyse the composition of the coins’ alloy an...
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The archaeometric study of the frescoes by the painter Saturnino Gatti (1463–1518) in the apse of the Church of San Panfilo in Villagrande di Tornimparte (L’Aquila) was the subject of the II National Research Project [...]
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The paper presents the first archaeometric results on a selection of ancient Roman coins (anto-niniani) from a treasure found in the Roman necropolis area of ancient Cumae (Southern Italy) during archaeological campaigns by the Centre Jean Bérard. A multi-analytical approach consisting of non-destructive techniques (stereomicroscopy, FESEM-EDS, pXR...
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Situated on the left bank of the Sabato river, the city of Abellinum (Campania region, southern Italy) represents a tangible testimony to the influence of the Roman civilization in Irpinia. At the site, where the remains of the public area of the town are preserved, archaeological excavations unearthed a monumental Pompeian domus, likely owned by M...
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The Bobaomby volcanic field (10–11 Ma) is the northernmost volcanic area of Madagascar, and is a monogenetic volcanic field comprising outcrops of lava flows, dykes, scoria cones, tuff rings and plugs, widely scattered over an area of roughly 500 km ² . The volcanic rocks range in composition from nephelinite, basanite and tephrite, through tephrit...
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Excavations at the north-eastern side of the city Cumae (modern Cuma) brought to light the Tomba del Banchetto per l’Eternità, a hypogeum chamber tomb with vaulted ceiling built in tuff blocks dated back to the first decades of the first century BCE. The exceptional nature of the discovery, resembling an Oscan tradition, is due to the peculiar deco...
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The important discoveries at the recent archaeological excavations at Punta d’Alaca site in the west side of the Vivara island (Campania region) highlighted the presence of a Bronze Age thriving settlement attesting the development of a flourishing ceramic production, mainly specialized in the manufacturing of common wares. The archaeometric study...
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This research has focused on the assessment of the compositional features and mechanical and antifouling performances of two different mortars formulated for an underwater setting, and which contain Mg(OH)2 as an antifouling agent. Regarding the mechanical characterization, the uniaxial compressive strength and flexural strength were measured. The...
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The technological performance of a chabazite-rich rock belonging to the Campanian Ignimbrite formation, outcropping in the nearby of San Mango sul Calore (southern Italy), has been evaluated for the sorption and release of ibuprofen sodium salt after a surface modification of the starting geomaterial using two different chlorinated surfactants. Equ...
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Porcelain stone used at the early kilns of Arita, Japan, has never been identified due to the lack of written records. Ryumon and Shirakawa deposits are considered to have possibly been exploited before Izumiyama was discovered in the early 1630s, but there are no records or any previous scientific research aimed at resolving such crucial issue. Th...
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Ceramic building materials (CBM) are interesting archaeological items for gathering the material culture identity and urban setting of the ancient populations since their production is generally related to the local availability of clayey raw materials and advancements of technological skills of ancient makers. This paper investigates the Hellenist...
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The history of brick manufacturing in Madagascar dates back to the early 1800 s when European colonisers imparted to the local population the basic knowledge for firing clayey sediment to obtain a more durable con- struction material. The evaluation of the entire production cycle accounting for the involved natural resources such as raw materials,...
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This paper represents the first result of an active collaboration between the University of Sannio and the San Pio Hospital (Benevento, Italy), started in the 2018, that aims to a detailed mineralogical investigation of urinary stones of patients from Campania region. Herein, selected human bladder stones have been deeply characterized for clinical...
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This research aims to define a chemical, mineralogical and strontium isotope database for clayey materials collected along the Nile River banks (White Nile, Blue Nile, Atbara and Main Nile Rivers) in Sudan, to be use for prehistoric and historic pottery provenance studies. The approach here adopted consists in using the clayey materials tout court,...
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Recent excavations of the Via dei Sepolcri ceramic workshop in Pompeii provide an exceptional window into ancient Roman material culture. The remarkable ceramic objects found here, and importantly, the raw geological materials used in their production, afford a unique opportunity to gather information about each aspect of the organisation of the wo...
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The island of Vivara represents today one of the most important sites for the study of the relations between the Mycenaean world and Western Mediterranean cultures of the Bronze Age. This report presents the most significant results acquired through archaeological excavations in the last decade of research: the main housing structures, the corpus o...
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The present article provides chemical and mineralogical data obtained during an archaeometric characterization of 40 samples (33 pottery sherds, 5 clay samples, 1 sand sample and 1 red earth pigment) collected in the Via dei Sepolcri ceramic workshop in Pompeii, Italy. The workshop was still active during the 79 CE eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, and the...
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This paper to which a short archaeometric appendix has been added, presents a terra sigillata chalice with relief decoration found in Pompeii in 1909 and published in Not. Scavi 1910, accompanied by a brief description and an unclear photograph. The chalice, unsigned, on the basis of its decorative motifs was attributed, by F.P. Porten Palange, to...
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A scientific interdisciplinary team promoted an integrated archaeometric study of selected frescoed tombs within a project funded by Archaeological Museum of Paestum (Capaccio, Salerno, southern Italy). By using a multi-disciplinary approach, a comparative study of the pigments used on the representative painted slab tombs was carried out with the...
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A stratigraphic analysis applied to the architectural remains of the medieval domus Apicii (Calvi, Benevento) allowed to define four main building periods characterized by different materials and masonry techniques. Intense biological colonization and other damage pathologies affect the building geomaterials. A quantitative evaluation of the conser...
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The northern slope of Mt. Vesuvius contains some interesting archaeological sites, including the site discovered in the town of Pollena Trocchia, where the remains, dated to between the 79 and 472 CE eruptions, document the transition from the Roman to late Roman cultural and socioeconomic settings. Profound changes occurred in this time interval,...
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The Tomb of the Diver has been subject for many decades of fierce debate among archaeologists and classicists. Since its discovery in 1968, some scholars have considered it a unique example of the lost tradition of Greek painting, others have emphasized Etruscan or Italic parallels. More recently, a possible local production has been suggested. Wit...
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The characterization of lime mortars has become of primary importance, to obtain information of the raw ingredients and building technology of ancient masonry structures. In this paper, 5 different samples from Anhui Province of China representing two types of lime mortar‐based materials – joint mortars between the bricks of the city wall and lime...
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This paper describes the results of the damage diagnosis performed on Ponte Rotto, a Roman bridge on the ancient Appia way located close to the city of Benevento (southern Italy). Despite it can be considered one of the most important remains of this type of monument in Campania region, the bridge was abandoned for centuries, being in a rather poor...
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The use of vibrational spectroscopy is gaining more and more relevance in the field of the identification and characterization of Cultural Heritage materials. In this frame we propose and discuss a copious collection of Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectra acquired in external reflectance (ER) mode (4000 - 400 cm⁻¹), which is a non-destructive...
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The evidence of a kārum-period storage building probably connected to the royal administration and the final uncovering of a Hittite monumental building in the northern Lower Town convey a new impression of the structural layout and economic structure of the city during the first half of the 2nd millennium B.C. In the north of the city and west of...
Conference Paper
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During the Roman age, the southern promontory of the gulf of Baia was the perfect location for the construction of Villas. In 1495 AD, during the Aragonese period, a huge military fortress (Castello Aragonese di Baia) was set in the area of one of these Villas. In 1999, during some restoration works inside the fortress, currently hosting the Archae...
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The present research deals with the evaluation of a clinoptilolite-rich rock, occurring in the Nižný Hrabovec deposit (Slovakia), for high-value technological applications based on sorption and in vitro release of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (i.e., ibuprofen sodium salt). This georesource was surface modified (SMNZ) using four cationic sur...
Conference Paper
Pompeii is one of the most important worldwide archaeological sites that preserves a precise time-frame of ancient Roman culture. A survey carried out in 2014 in Via Dei Sepolcri unearthed a ceramic workshop producing thin-walled pottery, active until a few hours before the 79 AD eruption. Here, unfired, fired, and overfired vessels along with the...
Conference Paper
The city of Cuma represents the most ancient Greek colony of the western Mediterranean Sea, studied since 1994 from the archaeological équipe of Centre Jean Bérard, in collaboration with other Italian Institutions. The excavations carried out in the northeast side of the city unearthed a monumental Roman necropolis with funerary mausoleums, tombs a...
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Archaeological excavations carried out in the sites of Rione Terra and Via Fascione in Pozzuoli (ancient Puteoli, Italy) unearthed samples of Red Slip Ware attributed to Terra Sigillata from Puteoli and Produzione A della Baia di Napoli, which are among the most important ceramic classes produced in Campania region and circulating in the Roman Empi...
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Archaeological excavations performed in a funerary complex in Cuma (Campania region, Italy) unearthed excellently preserved common wares dated to the third century A.D. Archaeometric analyses were focused on Campanian pitchers, Aegean‐like cooking pots, and pyriform pitchers, the latter recorded for the first time in an Italian context. The local p...
Conference Paper
When archaeometric studies on archaeological ceramics are performed, one of the most important questions asked by archaeologists is the provenance of pottery. This is usually performed by comparing minero-petrographic and chemical composition of ceramics with that of local raw materials (clays, temper), production indicators and appropriate referen...
Conference Paper
The island of Vivara represented an important Mediterranean trading center during the Bronze Age due to its strategic geographic position. Besides being an important venue of Greek trades involving long-distance operating merchants from western and eastern Mediterranean Sea, it was particularly flourishing for the commerce of metals, mainly come fr...
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This research deals with the archaeometric study of mortars of two outstanding examples of Roman architecture in Benevento (southern Italy): The Roman Theatre and the Arch of Trajan. Mortars were analysed by means of a multi-analytical approach (i.e., polarized light microscopy, thermal analyses, infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy...
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The materials and techniques of wall paintings decorating the Domus of Octavius Quartio, an outstanding patrician villa in ancient Pompeii, were investigated by means of a multi-analytical and non-invasive approach. Chemical and mineralogical characterization of pigments was obtained by the combined use of external reflection Fourier Transform infr...
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Protohistoric metal objects coming from the archaeological sites of Pontecagnano (Salerno, Italy) and Striano (Naples, Italy), preserved in the Pontecagnano National Archaeological Museum and the Paleontological Museum of Naples University “Federico II” have been studied by means of an archaeometric approach. A multi-analytical procedure including...
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The potentiality of isotope analysis has largely been explored in archaeological sciences to date objects, attribute their provenance and depict ancient human dietary habits. However, the potential of this technique for pro-venance studies of ancient ceramics has barely been explored, due to the fact that the ceramic process often involves the sele...
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Full-text available
Thirty artefacts from the Archaeological Park of Paestum were investigated by means of scientific techniques on the occasion of the 2016 exhibition 'Possessione. Trafugamenti e falsi di antichità a Paestum'. The multi-analytic diagnostic campaign was aimed at identifying forgeries. Results provided a deeper understanding of both ancient technology...
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The encapsulation and delivery of drugs often involves the use of expensive microporous materials, and we have investigated the potential for natural zeolites from the widespread volcanic formations of southern Italy as alternatives to these carriers. Surface-modified natural zeolites (SMNZs) with diverse micellar structures (patchy and complete bi...
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High-precision⁴⁰ Ar/³⁹Ar ages, major and trace element, and radiogenic isotope data are presented for the basanites and alkali basalts forming the southwesternmost monogenetic volcanic field in Madagascar. The volcanic rocks were erupted along fissure zones and aligned cones in a nearly flat area covered by the Cenozoic sediments of the Morondava b...
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The Yuzhen Palace is one of the nine palaces in the Ancient Building Complex built by order of the Yongle Emperor during the Ming dynasty. The buildings were built with dressed black bricks. As a result of the planned national South–North Water Diversion project, the water level in the Danjiangkou Reservoir that surrounds the Yuzhen Palace was expe...
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This paper reports the results of an archaeometric characterisation carried out on nineteen samples of Late Roman table and cooking ware by means of the combined use of spectroscopic techniques (colorimetry, FT-IR and μ-Raman). The study attempts at defining the technology adopted in the manufacturing of these ceramics, unearthed during archaeolog...
Conference Paper
This paper shows the results of a preliminary mineralogical and petrographic characterization of ancient mortars from the Arch of Trajan of Benevento (Italy) by means a multi-analytical approach in according to the UNI 11305:2009 and UNI 11176:2006 recommendations. Results show that analyzed samples consist in natural hydraulic lime mixed to a poor...
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Since 1960s, mortars have been exploited as a potential material for radiocarbon dating and, despite the fact that this methodology appears very simple in its principles, some measured radiocarbon ages were definitely different from the expected historic ages. The paper concerns to the characterisation of mortars from three Andalusian castles (Spai...
Conference Paper
Building ceramics from Témesa, from the Hellenistic to the Roman period, were analysed via minero-petrographic methods. Local raw materials (clay and temper), largely available in the area, were also analysed. This study revealed the uninterrupted exploitation of these materials during the considered period. The mix-design of most building ceramics...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The paper reports a chemical and minera¬logical characterization of some metallic artefacts from two Campanian protohistoric archaeological sites. The first group of samples, mainly dated to Iron Age, is preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Pontecagnano (Salerno, Italy). A second group of coeval metallic objects, preserved at the Paleontologic...
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Bricks are the most common building materials of Madagascar due to the large availability of clayey raw material, the simple technology of production and the ease of use. The brick production is mainly organised in local workshops close to supplying site of clayey deposit where sediments are extracted, moulded in bricks, dried and then fired in ope...
Article
Fourteen samples of tourmaline from the Real Museo Mineralogico of Federico II University (Naples) have been characterized through multi-methodological investigations (EMPA-WDS, SEM-EDS, LA-ICP-MS, and FT-IR spectroscopy). The samples show different size, morphology and color, and are often associated with other minerals. Data on major and minor el...
Conference Paper
The research is focused on the application of µ-Raman spectroscopy to pottery shards coming from three representative archaeological sites of Campania region (Southern Italy), in order to infer the provenance key-elements and technological markers also by the comparison with “canonical” analytical techniques (SEM/EDS, XRD, Mössbauer spectroscopy)....
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Full-text available
This study provides new structural, stratigraphic, and geochemical data and a literature review of the Cretaceous–Paleogene stratigraphy, biostratigraphy, tectonics, and magmatism in the southern Apennines belt, Italy, with the aim to demonstrate the occurrence of an Albian to Eocene abortive rifting stage in the southern Adria domain. During this...
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Different techniques (X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscope, colorimetry, visible-near infrared reflectance spectroscopy) were carried out to investigate the cause of colour changes of traditional ceramic materials. Two clayey materials of different composition, collected in the Bay of Naples, were fired in oxidising atmosp...
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This paper focuses on the application of external reflection Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy for the classification of some minerals commonly used as gemstones and mineral collection: quartz (colourless, tourmalinated and smoky varieties), calcite and aragonite. The results highlight the differences between reflectance and absorbance spectr...