New methods collection to identify the building and decoration stones provenance

When investigating historical building stones, we often encounter an issue concerning the original material provenance identification. Addressing this issue is usually rather complicated due to the unavailability of samples to conduct a petrographic analysis that itself often cannot fully identify the site of acquisition. It is therefore imperative to focus on non-destructive research methods applicable in the field. Great emphasis is placed on interdisciplinarity with experts from a variety of fields contributing to the achievement of relevant results. The reflectance spectroscopy method in the near- and mid-infrared spectral range (1000–2500 nm), a simple and effective method to be applied in situ, is used for non-destructive identification of stone provenance. A unique spectral reflectance curve representing the reflectance in percentages versus the wavelength can be defined for each material. Consequently, the curve can be compared with spectra in the pre-prepared library in order to find the one best corresponding to the investigated curve to identify the material. The applied traceology methods are used to determine the approximate age of the stone elements to specify the achieved results, and not least, they are compared with the results of archival and art history research. Within our research, these methods were applied during the investigation of historical stone artefacts and masonry in St. Vitus Cathedral, located in Prague, Czech Republic. The achieved results corroborate a high potential of the selected methods and approaches.