Fired pottery

The surface of fired pottery is generally porous and readily absorbs moisture. To conceal outside imperfections, decorate the surface, and make the pottery more or less impervious to water and other liquids, many ceramic objects are glazed, that is, coated with a thin layer of glaze (Tite 2004). The nature of glaze and the glazing process are discussed in Chapter 3. 

Well-fired pottery, fired at temperatures above 850°C, is a very stable material in fact, it is practically inert and indestructible. If the firing temperature is low, however, say below 600°C, an inferior material is obtained that rain... 

The theory behind chemical provenancing of ceramics is extremely simple -perhaps to the point of being naive. It is assumed that the chemical composition of the fired ceramic is indicative of the chemical composition of the principal raw material - clay. It has always been acknowledged that the transformation of raw clay into fired pottery is potentially a complex process, which might involve a number of factors, all of which could influence the final composition of the product. These include ... 

Samples of the different dry clays were taken, as well as those of the prepared mix, the sand tempers, the salt, and the fired pottery. Samples were also obtained from a neighboring potter who followed the same procedure but obtained his clays from a different location. 

Sea salt to the pottery. More importantly, there were no significant differences between the samples fired at different temperatures or for different times. Raw clay, the water-prepared potters clay, and the fired pottery showed no meaningful differences. Thus, we simply ground dried clay samples and treated them according to the pottery procedure. 

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