The Research Institute of the University of Bucharest (ICUB), in collaboration with Bucharest Science Festival, has the pleasure to announce the upcoming event named “Archaeology and the exact sciences”. The festival, organized by the Secular-Humanistic Association of Romania (ASUR), in partnership with Planet of Science, represents a vast assembly of distinct events meant to facilitate the wider public’s contact with the institutions and disciplines behind the scientific progress in domains that directly or indirectly influence daily life.
The “Archaeology and the exact sciences” event is an initiative that aims to familiarize middle and high school students with the multi- and inter-disciplinary research activity undertaken in the laboratories of the ArchaeoSciences platform of ICUB. For this occasion, visits will be made at the Digital Archaeology, Microarchaeology and Pottery Technology laboratories inside the building of the University of Bucharest. In each lab, both the students and the teachers will benefit from ample explanations from several members of the research team.
In the Digital Archaeology lab, the main subject will be the data acquisition equipment, especially the drones and the non-intrusive prospection equipment, as well as the methods of data processing for publication. The presentation will include the way of operating the equipment, the types of data that can be obtained and the way they correspond to the reality in the field.
In the Microarchaeology lab, the students will be able to observe and assist in analyzing and interpretation of artifacts and ecofacts with the help of a microscope and through other means of analyzing (SEM).
In the Pottery Technology lab, the methods of analyzing the ceramic material will be presented, including the assembling of fragmentary vases and a series of compositional analyses. An important part of the research is made up from the experimental archaeology sessions, which is why experiments will be included in the presentation, regarding the composition, physico-chemical properties and the working of the raw materials, together with building, utilizing and monitoring the behaviour of pottery kilns.
The visits to the ArchaeoSciences labs will take place on 27th, 28th and 29th of September 2023, between 10 AM and 12 PM, and the entrance will be through the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics of the University of Bucharest (14 Academiei Str., Bucharest).