Thursday 2 June, 4 PM CET (ZOOM WEBINAR)
GIOVANNI MAGNO
ABSTRACT: Cremation practices has been documented since prehistoric times and it was a common funerary custom until the advent of Catholicism. After a long hiatus, new movements arose during XVII-XVIII century to bring cremation back with modern criteria, mainly due to hygienic reasons and overcrowding of cemeteries.
Lodovico Brunetti (1813-1899), professor of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Padua (Italy) and founder of the former Museum of Pathology, now Morgagni Museum of Anatomy – Section of Pathological Anatomy, was the first to investigate ancient cremains and started to carry out a crematory experimental research to improve the ancient open-air pyre practice between 1869 and 1870.
His studies and experiments led him to prototype a new crematory oven and become formally the father of modern cremation. Furthermore, the social and theological dimensions of Brunetti's innovations demonstrated how the use of fire has aided the development of new tools and technology, as well as the evolution of cultural context, thus allowing cremation to be once again accepted as an alternative to inhumation.
To evaluate the validity of Brunetti's crematorium, it was provided a comparison with the results of modern experiences of experimental archaeology based on Bronze and Iron Age open-air cremation rituals. These experiments were aimed to assess the functionality of the crematorium compared to open-air pyres, through the effects of fire on bones and soft tissues, monitoring temperature variation, pyre development through time and various ways of extinguishing the fire, according to ancient funerary customs.
A preliminary correlation between the burning/extinguishing damage, bone colors and structural alterations was assessed in 2013 using Photometric Scanner Imaging (PSI), and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, showing subtle differences in the crystalline state attained, reflected by significant differences in color evaluated by the reflectance measurements using the Photometric Scanner, which could have been correlated to different extinguishing procedures.
These analyses have assessed some characteristic features of bones attributed to the ritual burning and extinguishing procedures in an attempt to discriminate them from other diagenetic processes, although a new complete analysis on the bones are planned to continue the preliminary research with modern state-of-the-art analytical techniques. Thus, it will be possible to shed a new light on how cremation rituals were performed and how these differences may affect the structural and chemical composition of bones combining FTIR and PSI methods with carbon and oxygen isotope analysis.