The ASMOSIA Congresses started at Il Ciocco (Lucca) thanks to M. Waelkens and N. Herz, with a workshop entitled "Marble in Ancient Greece and Rome: Geology, Quarries, Commerce, Artifacts" which saw the participation of 50 persons coming from different professional areas. The association, then, became the seat for discussions and the reunion of physicists specialized in archaeometry as well as of archaeologists, art historians and Museum keepers with the mutual aim to organize projects in cooperation for a better insight into the problems associated with the use of the stone by men in the antiquity.
During the years other conferences have then followed that first one: Leuven (Belgium, 1990), Athens (Greece, 1993), Bordeaux (France, 1995), Boston (USA, 1998), Venezia (Italy, 2000), Limenas (isle of Thasos, Greece, 2003), AIX en Provence (France, 2006), Tarragona (Spain, 2009).
The number of the ASMOSIA members has increased four times, from 50 in 1988 to 250 ca. at the present time, representing 25 countries.
The publications of the Association which include the Proceedings of each Congress as well as the biennial ASMOSIA Bulletin have been in time bestowed great attention both from the scientific community of the historic - artistic archaeological, and museum areas and from the world of the geologic and physical sciences, thus offering a contribution for the increase of the approaches to interdisciplinary and in-cooperation studies. Before ASMOSIA triggered such a scientific trend, minimal were the forms of collaboration between specialists of the humanities and of physical and mathematical sciences, within the research on the ancient marbles so that this is to be considered as one of the most significant objectives achieved by the Association.
The unique value that AMOSIA has bestowed on the scientific research on the marbles and the stones in the antiquity, has been in time proved also by means of the attention that the Conferences and the publications of the Association have received from prestigious funding organizations such as the Nato and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
