Archäometrische und archäologische Studien an antiken Skulpturen im Museum der Bildenden Künste, Budapest

Abstract

This article the long-term archaeometric research on the ancient marble sculptures in the Collection of Classical Antiquities of the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, conducted in relation to new archaeological research on those Greek and Roman works of art. The cooperation of these two disciplines applied to ancient sculptures by discussing and re-examining the methods and arguments resulted in new findings. Consideration of archaeometric information in archaeological research may support art-historical classification on the one hand; on the other it often raises new questions leading to innovative interpretations or unexpected and in some cases even currently unsolvable problems, thus stimulating scientific debate. Several sections of this article discussing characteristic examples try to show the potential and difficulties of combined archaeological and archaeometrical research related to ancient sculptures in the Budapest collection.