IS WHITE PIGMENT ON APPELES’ PALETTE A TiO2-RICH KAOLIN? NEW ANALYTICAL RESULTS ON THE CASE OF MELIAN-EARTH

Abstract

According to Theophrastus of Eressos (4th c. B.C.) Melian-earth was a very bright white color used by the painters of his era. Pliny the Elder described it as the white pigment of the famous painter Appeles (c. 352 - 308 BC). Earlier investigations on the island of Melos (Aegean Sea) have not identified the specific place of the extraction of this material, because of the unknown chemical character. In our new analytical data from excavations (Turkey, Italy, England) the presence of a TiO2 phase in the white ground decoration of ceramics has been testified, especially after the meticulous exploration of the island of Melos with a new point of view. At the western side of the island Kaolin was found in the locality of Kontaros with 1% by weight TiO2. Analytical results from the white layer of decoration of the white ground Lekythoi give us the same level of TiO2. We propose that the famous white pigment well known as melian earth in antiquity could be a kind of natural Titania as impurity in the Kaolin.