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For long, cinnabar has generated large interest among mural painters, artists, and alchemists in antiquity as well as nowadays conservation scientists and restorers, who are anxious to restore the color of paintings seriously affected by blackening of the pigment, often qualified as dramatic and irreversible. The hexagonal mercury sulfide pigment, often of mineral origin, has an intense red color. With respect to Italy and to other Mediterranean Roman sites, Thamusida fits well within an aesthetic and technical koinè that differentiates sites of the Italian peninsula from those in the Provinces.īlackening of cinnabar or vermilion has always been a dilemma. The overall manufacture was of low quality, and hence perfectly comparable to that observed in other Roman Provinces. The pigments used were cinnabar, red ochre, yellow ochre, Egyptian blue, green earth, chalk white and carbon black. The plasters from the bath complexes (public buildings) and the Temple à trois cellae (sacred building) were very poorly made, while those from areas VII and XX (private buildings) indicated the involvement of more expert masons. Plaster aggregate was made using a mixture of sands and clays that outcrop nearby, while lime was probably produced using the local limestone crust, as was further verified for the mortars. The sample characterization was obtained using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, image analysis and Raman micro-spectroscopy.

The new archaeometric evidence sheds light on these rare examples of Roman wall painting in the Sicilian Roman province, which until today have not been systematically studied from the point of view of materials and execution techniques, confirming the dating and connections with contemporary workshops active in other Roman provinces.Ī total of 22 samples were taken both from plasters still in situ and from collapsed material recovered by French, Italian and Moroccan teams at the Roman settlement of Thamusida (Rabat, Morocco).

Finally, infrared imaging provided new data about the pictorial technique and iconography. X-ray fluorescence analysis was carried out to identify the original pictorial palette, and electron microprobe analyses coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy to define the alteration products.

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The scientific investigation was preliminarily based on a non-destructive approach, performed in situ using portable equipment and subsequently, the further examination of a micro fragment using micro-destructive investigation. The recent careful cleaning of the pictorial surfaces and the new archaeological and archaeometric research revealed unusual details about the pictorial technique and newly painted subjects. In 1874, five panels were detached from the walls and moved to the National Museum of Palermo for conservation purposes. The House of the Masks definition was suggested by Salemi Pace in 1872 when he published the discovery of frescoes with colourful garlands and theatrical masks. This fresco cycle embellished the walls of a banquet room (oecus) discovered during an archaeological excavation carried out by Giovanni Patricolo in 1869. This house was a luxurious private residence built on two floors and centred around a peristyle. The cycle of frescoes unearthed is the best preserved and most complete example of wall painting dating to the Republican Roman period in Sicily. These significant paintings, dating back to the first century BCE, are the most significant examples of Pompeian style discovered in Sicily to date. The Archaeological Museum of Palermo (Sicily) has recently presented the results of the restoration of three wall paintings from the House of the Masks of Solunto archaeological site.

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