VALENCIA, SPAIN—A team of scientists from the University of Valencia and France’s National Center for Scientific Research has identified a new set of figures painted in black on the walls of the Remígia Cave in the Valltorta-Gassulla area of Spain, and analyzed how the pigments in the artworks were prepared. The pigments were tested on site with EDXRF—energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence, and microsamples were tested in the lab with electron microscopy. Most of the rock art in the Iberian Mediterranean Basin, known as Levantine art, is made with a red pigment from iron oxide. Red was also used to paint over some of the black images. White was sometimes used to complement the red. The black pigments in these new paintings were made from carbonized plant materials that could help the team date the artwork. “Up to now, these pigments were associated with the use of mineral components such as manganese oxides, but this study has made it possible, for the first time, to identify the use of carbonized plant material to produce the black pigments used in the Levantine paintings at Valltorta-Gassulla,” Clodoaldo Roldán of the University of Valencia told Science Daily. To read about another ancient pigment study, see "From Egyptian Blue to Infrared."
