The Fitch Lab, British School at Athens hosts researchers working on pigments from around Greece and further afield; with access to microscopes and our pigment reference collection they are able to complete some exciting work. Alice Clinch, a Fitch Bursary Award Holder and PhD candidate in History of Art at Cornell University has worked on the analysis of pigments and painted plaster from sites across Greece and Italy. She has analyzed material from Sicily in collaboration with the Parco Archeologico Naxos Taormina and the Finnish Institute at Athens.
Naxos was the first Greek settlement in Sicily, founded in 734 BCE by settlers from Chalcis, Euboia, and Naxos, Cyclades, and was inhabited until its destruction by the Syracusans in 403 BCE. Alice’s research focuses on pigments from the Classical period from both domestic architecture and the shipshed complex to investigate the use, trade and economy of pigments by a Greek community in Sicily.
