Chemical analysis pottery

Hart, F. A. and Adams, S. J. (1983). The chemical-analysis of Romano-British pottery from the Alice Holt forest, Hampshire, by means of inductively-coupled plasma emission-spectrometry. Archaeometry 25 179-185. 

From the painted walls of tombs, temples and other structures which have been protected from exposure to weather, and from the decorated surfaces of pottery, chemical analysis often is able to give us knowledge of the materials used for such purposes. Such data also serve at times to assist in the interpretation of the often unclear or incomplete descriptions given by extant ancient writers. 

Glaze and paint characterization by LA-ICP-MS, 284,286-288/ Utah, historic, pottery glazes, chemical analysis, 452-457 See also Pottery Guatemala... 

Early potters selected materials that were rich in clay, but in some cases, they separated coarser components from the sediments. In other cases, they added temper. In Chapter 4, Bishop and Neff discuss the effect of temper on the chemical analysis of pottery. They point out that the concentration of an element measured in a ceramic artifact can be represented mathematically. Bishop and Neff show that the analysis of pottery sherds... 

In Chapter 5, Olin and Blackman explain that differences in the chemical compositions of pottery are caused by both the use of temper and by chemical and mineralogical differences in the source of the clay. Olin and Blackman report on the continuation of their studies of majolica (a common earthenware pottery) from the Spanish Colonial period in Mexico. They used INAA as well as microscopic examination of the minerals to show that majolica produced in Spain could be distinguished from that produced in Mexico. Volcanic temper was present in the ceramics produced in Mexico, and the chemical analysis of these local ceramics suggested different production centers in Mexico. The discovery of a chemically distinct group of sherds added to the typological classifications of this pottery. 

Any given analyzed sample of pottery is a small subset of a larger ceramic system. Pottery is formed from clays and nonplastic constituents according to shared customs of the local pottery-making group as well as idiosyncratic or stochastic effects. The compositional profile that is derived from the chemical analysis of a ceramic sample, therefore, is a weighted expression of both natural and cultural constraints. 

Thirty-two sherds representing five different examples of Kayenta Anasazi Pueblo II pottery (Tusayan Corrugated [TC], Medicine Black-on-Red [MB], Tusayan Black-on-Red [TB], Dogoszhi Black-on-White [DB], and Sosi Black-on-White [SB]) have been analyzed for the elements As, Ba, Co, Cr, Cm, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, Se, V, and Zn by using the techniques of flame atomic absorption spectroscopy (.FAA) and electrothermal atomic absorption spectroscopy (ETAA). Analytical procedures for the chemical analysis of ceramics afford accuracy and sensitivity and require only a modest capital investment for instrumentation. The sherd samples were collected at two sites, one in southern Utah (Navajo Mountain [NM]) and the second in northern Arizona (Klethla Valley [KV]). These sites are approximately 60 km apart. Statistical treatment of the data shows that only three clay types were used in the 32 sherds analyzed, and that only three elements (Fe, Pb, and Ni) are necessary to account for 100% of the dispersion observed within this sample set. 

Eight ceramic samples from the Early Jomon occupations at Yagi were also analyzed as part of a continuing project involving both miner-alogical and chemical analysis (30). Basal units at Yagi appeared to have adequate amounts of clay to manufacture pottery, and hence may have... 

Therefore, chemical analysis is the key to provenance studies, especially for ceramics with identical or similar figure types, for pottery with an unknown origin or when trade routes are to be investigated. 

Using a portable beam stability-controlled XRF spectrometer, Romano et al. (2005) have determined the concentrations of Rb, Sr, Y, Zr, and Nb in 50 fine potsherds from the votive deposit of San Francesco in Catania (Italy) by using a multilinear regression method in their bid for quantitative nondestructive determination of trace elements in archaeological pottery. A small portion of a few potsherds was even powdered in order to test the homogeneity of the material composing the fine pottery samples and the XRF data were compared with those obtained by chemical analysis of the powdered samples. 

Rational Analysis. The mineralogical composition of a material as deduced from the chemical analysis. With materials whose general mineralogical composition is not already known, the calculation is made only after micro-and/or X-ray examination has shown what minerals are present and their approximate proportions. With pottery clays the calculation is made without such guidance, either on the feldspar... 

Hedges, R.E.M. and McClennan, M. (1976). On the cation exchange capacity of fired clays and its effect on the chemical and radiometric analysis of pottery. Archaeometry 18 203-207. 

Mommsen, H., Bier, T., and Hein, A. (2002). A complete chemical grouping of the Berkeley neutron activation analysis data on Mycenaean pottery. Journal of Archaeological Science 29 613-637. 

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