X-Radiography of Archaeological Ceramics (original) (raw)

APPLICATION OF X-RADIOGRAPHY IN UNDERSTANDING ANCIENT CERAMIC TECHNOLOGY

Indian History Congress Proceedings, 71st Session, 2010

The technique of ceramics manufacturing involves a series of processes in different stages of making. However, the finished products do not reveal all these modalities unless tested scientifically. Application of radiography in understanding ceramic technology is one of the many scientific methods used in ceramic study. A preliminary attempt has been made by the author in this paper to introduce this technique and eradicate the speculative and descriptive approach to ceramics in India. The paper focuses on understanding the manufacturing technology of two Chalcolithic Ahar culture ceramics such as Tan ware and Thin Red ware of Balathal, which are considered to be mostly made on wheels.

Looking through Pots: Recent Advances in Ceramics X-radiography

2008

From its first application to ceramics, X-radiography has been used successfully to identify manufacturing details. While many of the key parameters are well understood, several questions require further analysis. These include the radiographic distinction between wheel-thrown and wheel-shaped pots and an assessment of the impact of secondary forming techniques and surface treatments on inclusion orientation laid down during primary forming. To clarify these issues, controlled experiments were conducted. Results indicate that coiled and wheel-shaped vessels can be distinguished radiographically from fully wheel-thrown ones. As regards secondary forming and surface treatments, none of those in- vestigated could be shown to obscure traces of primary forming techniques. Overall, X-radiography is shown to be a valuable tool for under- standing forming techniques and sequences of ancient vessels. Assessing X-radiography’s contribution in characterising clay fabrics, experiments were conducted with regard to clay body and inclusion visibility. These experiments support Foster’s conclusions [Foster. G.V., 1985. Identification of inclusions in ceramic artefacts by xeroradiography. Journal of Field Archaeology 12, 373e376]. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Insights into Manufacturing Techniques of Archaeological Pottery: Industrial X-ray Computed Tomography as a Tool in the Examination of Cultural Material

Craft and science: International perspectives on archaeological ceramics, UCL Qatar Series in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, 2014

The application of X-radiography in ceramic studies is becoming an increasingly valued method. Using the potential of industrial X-ray computed tomography (CT) for non-destructive testing as an archaeometric or archaeological method in pottery studies, especially regarding aspects such as manufacturing techniques or pottery fabrics, requires controlled data-acquisition and post-processing by scientific computing adjusted to archaeological issues. The first results of this evaluation project show that, despite the difficulties inherent in CT technology, considerable information can be extracted for pottery analysis. The application of surface morphology reconstructions and volumetric measurements based on CT data will open a new field in future non-invasive archaeology.

X-ray Tomography Studies of Prehistoric Ceramic Artifacts

International Journal of Modern Physics: Conference Series Vol. 27 (2014) 1460135 (8 pages)

"X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) is a powerful non-destructive technique that can yield interesting structural information not discernible through visual examination only. This paper presents the results of the CT scans of four objects belonging to the Romanian cultural heritage attributed to the Vinča, Cucuteni and Cruceni-Belegiš cultures. The study was performed with an X-ray tomographic device developed at the Department for Applied Nuclear Physics from Horia Hulubei National Institute for Nuclear Physics and Engineering in Măgurele, Romania. This apparatus was specially designed for archaeometric studies of low-Z artifacts: ceramic, wood, bone. The tomographic investigations revealed the internal configuration of the objects and provided information about the degree to which the previous manipulations affected the archaeological items. Based on the X-ray images resulting from the CT scans, hints about the techniques used in the manufacturing of the artifacts were obtained, as well as some indications useful for conservation/restoration purposes"

The digital radiography of archaeological pottery: Program and protocols for the analysis of production

Archaeologists collaborating with material scientists at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) as part of the Making of Ancient Eurasia (MAE) Project have developed formal methodological standards for the assemblage-based digital radiographic (DR) analysis of archaeological pottery. While analog radiography of pottery (X-radiography, Xeroradiography, etc.) has functioned as a common disciplinary tool for some time, inaccessibility, obsolescence, and significantly enhanced functionality have made DR instrumen-tation increasingly attractive and vital. This article presents the theoretical underpinnings, technique development, and resultant protocols that allow digital radiography to analyze very large assemblages and provide quantitative data sets that act as true counterparts to geochemical and mineralogical ones. As a technique of structural pottery evaluation, DR is particularly suited to the analysis of ceramic paste preparation and vessel formation, providing lines of evidence that can flesh out neglected portions of the chaîne op eratoire, augment existing geochemical or typological classifications, and help more deeply characterize various potting traditions. Such datasets are most useful to scholars interested in harnessing the ability of the pottery " life cycle " to shed light on economic life, learning frameworks, and human social differences and group identities. The technical capacities and analytical potential of DR are demonstrated through several test analyses of ancient Chinese pottery, to be followed by more extensive case studies in draft. Prospects for closely related, three-dimensional X-ray computed tomographic approaches are also discussed.

Non-destructive fabric analysis of prehistoric pottery using high-resolution X-ray microtomography: a pilot study on the late Mesolithic to Neolithic site Hamburg-Boberg

Journal of Archaeological Science, 2012

The characterisation of prehistoric pottery fragments presents a quite complex task. In provenance studies, petrographic and chemical analyses of the ceramic materials are employed to investigate potential production areas in respect to the geolocial background. Moreover, also the production technology of the firing process, as well as the forming techniques used by the prehistoric potters are of great interest. Their investigation is most often accompanied by a destructive preparation of the samples. In this paper, we want to present high-resolution X-ray microtomography (m-CT), a non-destructive and non-invasive method, as a supplementary research tool in the study of prehistoric pottery. Ceramic fragments from the EndmesolithiceNeolithic site Hamburg-Boberg 15 (northern Germany) were analysed by X-ray microtomography. m-CT inspection combines quantification and shape analysis of fabric components by means of computer aided image processing. As the m-CT method is sensitive to material densities, qualitative and quantitative analyses of different temper materials are possible. Furthermore, the m-CT method permits the characterisation of the connectivity within the porous system, as well as the analysis of the orientation of the pore structures, which are indicative for vessel forming techniques. Although limited by the resolution of the reconstructed images, distribution analysis of heavy minerals in the clay matrix can offer distinctive features to discriminate various clay sources. Moreover, X-ray microtomography can be used to infer the nature of organic temper even with all plant remains completely burnt out during the firing process. The visualisation of the high-resolution true volume renderings and their detailed morphometric characterisation enables new avenues in the study of ceramic technology.

X-rays in art and archaeology: an overview

Powder …, 2004

An overview of the techniques used in art and archaeology is presented and the applicability of X-ray radiography, X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) as a tool for nondestructive investigations of objects of art and archaeology is discussed. X-ray ...

Multi-Scale Measurements of Neolithic Ceramics—A Methodological Comparison of Portable Energy-Dispersive XRF, Wavelength-Dispersive XRF, and Microcomputer Tomography

Minerals

Archaeometric investigation of ancient pottery with regard to their material composites allows insights into the material structures, production techniques and manufacturing processes. The applied methods depend on the classification of the pottery: some finds should remain unchanged for conservation reasons, other finds are less valuable or more common. While the first group cannot be destroyed for material analyses and the choice of analytical methods is limited, the latter can be investigated using destructive methods and thus can widen the spectrum of possible devices. Multi-element analyses of portable energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (portable XRF) have become important for archaeological research, as portable XRF provides a quick overview about the chemical composition of potteries and can be used in non-destructive as well as destructive ways in addition to conventional microscopic examination and petrographic thin sections. While most portable XRF analyses ...

Pre-Hispanic ceramics analyzed using PIXE and radiographic techniques

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, 2011

Ceramics objects are the most common artifacts found during excavation of archaeological sites and often depicts cultural habits and manufacturing technologies of the culture. The determination of macroscopic and microscopic characteristics of the ceramic objects such as the ceramic porosity, addition of tempers in the clay, main chemical components and the trace elements present in the ceramic can reveal many aspects about the manufacturing processes used by the culture, its degree of development, the provenance of the raw materials and the exchange networks. Also the radiography can help to investigate the manufactured processes, the size of the tempers used and the conservation status of the artifacts. In this present work two non-destructive techniques, radiography and PIXE (Particle Induced X-ray Emission) were used to characterize one set of thirty-six pre-Hispanic ceramic pieces from the Chimu Culture conserved in the Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia (MAE/USP). The PIXE analyses performed in the external beam setup at LAMFI (Laboratório de Análise de Materiais por Feixes Iônicos) allowed measure the principal chemical elements such as Al, Si, K, Ti, Fe and Ca, present in this group of pieces. X-ray imagings allowed identify the manufacture processes, the granularity of the tempers used, as well as the similarity and the differences between the pieces studied.