Archaeometrical study on marble forgery

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mühendislik Fakültesi, Jeoloji Mühendisliği Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2012

Öğrenci: GÜNEŞ SONGÜL

Danışman: ASUMAN GÜNAL TÜRKMENOĞLU

Özet:

This thesis focuses on the detection of marble sculpture forgery made of cultured marble. Cultured marble is a mixture of marble dust, polyester and accelerators. Thus chemical analysis of cultured marble would give declined levels of calcium when compared to authentic sculptures. Since sample removal is a problem when dealing with archaeological heritage, the instrument used was portable X-Ray Fluorescence device which provides in situ analysis of the samples. Device has been used to analyze six authentic and four forgery sculptures. Seven of the sculptures were provided by Anatolian Civilizations Museum and three of them were provided by a sculpture workshop, AkĢit Sanat. In the assessment of the results the software SPSS has been used. The results support the idea of lower levels of calcium in forgeries. Also cobalt and lead elements show distributional differences between authentic sculptures and forgeries. Further studies with a larger sample size is needed. However, the technique proves to be useful in distinguishing cultured marble sculptures from authentic marble sculptures.