Photo gallery

Photo gallery Szklary, Poland

The journey to Szklary in Lower Silesia in Poland was planned as a part of addressing the issue of provenance of earths and other iron oxide pigments in Middle Ages. The Szklary deposit is a unique locality of nickel-containing laterite with chrysoprase veins – a semiprecious stone used by Bohemian art workshops in the 14^th century, when Silesia was part of Bohemian Kingdom. It is being assumed that the surrounding red-brown rock has been used for painting purposes; its basic characteristic is a low content of Ni, which has been already detected by ALMA in some mediaeval murals. Besides the sampling in the Szklary locality, members of ALMA (David Hradil, Janka Hradilová, Petr Bezdička and Vlasta Vašutová) documented murals in the church of St. James in Přelouč and in the Broumov Monastery, which could contain the sought-after red-brown pigment.

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