Advances in archaeological science during COVID-19 pandemic

At the beginning of the 2020, the Italian Government declared the first national lockdown as measure to contrast and contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Consequently, scientific events such as congresses, workshops, and doctoral programs were drastically interrupted. To avoid virtual or blended forms, the IX Congress of the Italian Association of Archaeometry (AIAr), one of the most important meetings for the Italian scientific community and professionals involved in the study of cultural heritage professionals, was postponed to July 2021 and held in Naples (Italy) with the participation of more than 100 re- searchers and about 150 scientific contributions. Oral and poster presentations dealt with different archaeometric topics such as materials characterization and diagnostics, innovative technologies for archaeometry, provenance and dating, valorisation and dissemination of archaeological heritage, bioarchaeology, and forensic archaeology. Among the scientific contributions presented to the IX AIAr Congress, a selection of papers dealing with the topics listed above was published in the present Special Issue. These papers focus on the archaeometric characterization of histor- ical and archaeological materials from different geographical and chronological contexts. The most ancient materials investigated in this Special Issue include ochre on a Paleolithic flint pebble from Maschio dell’Artemisio (Latium, Italy) and Neolithic obsidian. Two Egyptian Middle Kingdom-painted wooden statuettes found by Ernesto Schiaparelli during the excavation of 1908 in the Asyut ne- cropolis were observed through X-ray computed tomography to infer the manufacturing techniques. A smartphone application based on the photo processing of previ- ously characterized Islamic and Roman mortars from historical com- plexes of Malaga and Valencia (Spain) has been proposed as an innovative potential approach for studying construction phases. Great attention was also paid to the archaeometric characterization of ceramic materials (i.e., Apulian Red Figures production, Roman pottery from Cumae) and Turkish Byzantine glass tesserae and to the digitalization of ancient Roman/Greek structures. Other investigations explored the potential of archaeobotany for the analysis of archaeological wooden artefacts (i.e. bog oak from Venetian Plain, Italy) and the vegetal remains recorded in the volcanic ash stra- tigraphy of the Plinian eruption of Somma Vesuvius known as Pomici di Avellino. The characterization of a Renaissance panel by Defendente Ferrari, the stucco decoration by Baldassarre Fontana, and the gouache gilding from the Royal Palace of Caserta (Italy) represent the most recent ma- terials investigated in this Special Issue. The success of the conference and the high quality of the papers published in this Special Issue demonstrate the attention and devotion of Italian researchers to the preservation of objects central to cultural heritage.