INSTITUT DE RECHERCHE SUR LES ARCHEOMATERIAUX (IRAMAT)

In the late Middle Ages, alabaster panels depicting religious scenes imported from England were very popular throughout Catholic Europe. in the French département of Gironde, for instance, more than a hundred of these artworks still exist; however, most of them have lost their original rich colouring. By combining medieval painting techniques, advances physico-chemical analyses and 3D technologies, a group of researchers from Bordeaux has succeeded in restoring several alabasters to their…

Two years after the fire of 15 April 2019, Notre-Dame will be the venue of a huge scientific investigation to uncover the cathedral's secrets and to help restore it. In this film, discover how researchers are drawing information from stone and iron to understand how the original builders constructed a cathedral that was much taller than its contemporaries. The ""iron"" team is focused on the remains of the upper part of the cathedral and the nails of the roof frame, using…

At the Cité Internationale de la Tapisserie (International Tapestry Museum) in Aubusson, scientists are studying pieces made of silk and wool thread, coloured by natural substances several hundred years ago. They try to determine the recipes used by the original dyers of the time by using methods allowing them to go back in time.

Every summer, within a specialist centre known as “La plateforme des arts du feu”, the small town of Melle in the French department of Les Deux-Sèvres becomes a stage for experimentation in ancient metallurgy. It is here that a research team is trying to recreate all the stages involved in minting coins just as it was done in the Graeco-Roman era. As a model, they are taking the silver owl of Athens that was struck in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. However, the process proves to be…

In 2003, restoration and new construction work in the private mansion of Mongenas, situated in the heart of Paris, brought to light a 14th-century bronze and jewelry workshop. Archaeologist Nicolas Thomas and his team from INRAP (Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives) intervened to carry out a methodical excavation. At the CRPA (Centre de recherche en physique appliquée à l'archéologie) in Bordeaux, archaeometallurgist Michel Pernot made a metallurgical study of the…