Leading from the Trenches
Our archaeology team will return to the site of the Roman city of Pollentia, just outside Alcúdia, Mallorca (Spain), for our tenth year of collaboration with Spanish archaeologists and the University of Barcelona Pollentia Field School. Our excavation efforts focus on burial grounds of the Roman era, Christian late Antiquity, and the Islamic period into the 13th century. Faculty and students form a close and cordial community spread across several rented villas in the medieval walled sector of Alcúdia, with time for excursions, local festivals, and exploration of local culture and cuisine.
Unearthing the Past to Envision our Future
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Chemical Archaeology
Braving assorted adventures with TSA and US and Spanish customs inspections and approvals, the UP Team took the University's portable XRF spectrometer to Pollèntia to test the possibility of field analysis of artifacts. Dr. Ray Bard, Associate Professor of Chemistry, worked with Director Cau and Barcelona graduate student Leandro to test accuracy and precision of field analysis. Portable XRF (X-ray fluorescence) spectroscopic analysis is clearly quicker and cheaper than use of a stationary spectrometer, as many samples can be analyzed in a short amount of time, with minimal sample preparation, and right where they are found in the field. Sample variation due to uneven surfaces...
Tenth Anniversary Reflections
In the summer of 2014 four UP faculty, six UP alumni, and four volunteers made an exploratory visit to Mallorca to work with the Barcelona team to explore the potential for faculty/student teams from UP to conduct research at Pollentia. We had two weeks, and our specific site-related goals were simple yet ambitious: to survey and map the long-buried sector of Pollentia known to contain a cemetery dating to the Roman Empire and Christian Antiquity and to undertake a trial excavation of the mapped cemetery.
Come With us on our Journey
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