In this study, a specific methodology for data processing was
developed, which makes the combination of vibrational spectrosco-
pies an easy and accurate technique for the objective recognition and
the differentiation of a large amount of natural organic substances.
These substances are,in their raw form, hardly identified and
differentiated, and even harder if they are processed or in a mixture.
Our corpus of reference samples is defined by four different chemical
families with various origins: some exude from trees like resins
(terpenoids) and gums (polysaccharides) or are extracted from plants
such as oils (triglycerides); others have animal origins such as shellacs
(terpenoids) or glues (proteins). Among these various kinds of
materials, we mainly focused on resins, widely used by ancient
societies, because they exude from multiple tree species of different
geographical provenances, leading to different chemical compositions.
Identifying them – and therefore their provenance –may be a way to
retrace the ancient commercial routes or to collect information for
history of art and techniques. Undertaking this kind of study requires
extensive collection of reference samples.