The interdisciplinary Workshop "The black gold that came from the sea" dedicated to the presentation of original research on the geochemical characterization of obsidians and glass will start next Monday 10 June, starting at 9.30, at the Arsenale della Marina Regia in Palermo ancient.
The initiative, organized by the Palermo Section of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) and by the Ustica Island Earth Science Museum Laboratory, in collaboration with the Superintendence of the Sea and with the A. Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum, proposes to enhance and restore to the collective memory the knowledge of what was the first large network of long-distance commercial and cultural exchanges created by man in prehistoric times.
A network that had one of the most important nodes of the entire Mediterranean basin in Sicily: obsidian, the great protagonist of commercial exchanges of that time, in fact came from the deposits of the central Mediterranean present in Lipari, Pantelleria, Sardinia (Monte Arci) and in Palmarola. From these areas the "black gold" was exported to many villages aboard small boats which also carried the first loads of food products, the first artifacts and the first forms of craftsmanship: not only goods, therefore, but also art, culture and technology.
Today, thanks to sophisticated physical and chemical analyzes and the joint work of archaeologists and researchers, from a tiny fragment of obsidian it is possible to trace the geological deposit of origin and define the historical period in which the raw material was worked up to assume the function of tool.
An exhibition of panels on the same theme will also be set up in the cloister of the A. Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum through which, during the summer months, visitors will be able to retrace the history and travels of obsidian in the Mare nostrum.
Download the event program here
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