Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
The combined use of sensitive analytical technique for studying pottery
samples, and statistical methods for scrutinizing the analytical results and
discriminating between samples of different composition generally provides
valuable information for establishing compositional groups and identifying
the provenance of the pottery. The requirements from any particular analyt-
ical technique to be used for the study of provenance are as follows:
1.
The technique should make possible the detection of a large number
of elements; the more elements that are determined, the greater the
degree of certainty in identifying the source of the pottery.
2.
It should be sensitive to detecting elements that may occur in very
low, even in trace amounts.
3.
It should be technically and economically viable to analyze a large
number of samples.
Given these requirements, it emerges that a suitable analytical technique for
studying provenance should provide relatively rapid results and preferably
be nondestructive, enabling determination of each element, and differentia-
tion among a large number of elements in relatively short periods of time.
Techniques that fulfill these conditions for studying the provenance of
pottery include several spectroscopic techniques, neutron activation and
X-rays fluorescence (see Textbox 10).
Optical emission spectroscopy
was used in an early investigation to study
the provenance of Greek Minoan and Mycenaean pottery, which was widely
used not only in their lands of origin but also in more or less distant areas,
from Asia minor and Egypt to Sicily and Italy. The results of these studies
made it possible to distinguish between Minoan and Mycenaean pottery and
also between other types of Greek pottery, for example, from the Pelopon-
nese and Crete. Moreover, the study also provided information on Myce-
naean pottery that was produced in the Peloponnese and then exported to
the Greek Islands and to Cyprus (Millett and Cattling 1967; Cattling et al.
1961). The analytical similarities and differences between the pottery groups,
as established in this study, were later confirmed, when samples from the
same groups were analyzed again, using a different analytical technique,
namely, neutron activation analysis (see Textbox 10). Moreover, the neutron
activation study provided a useful complement to the emission spectroscopy
study, both as a check on the latter and as a means of extending the range
of determinable elements.
Several thousand shards were analyzed in a wide-ranging study
intended to evaluate the accuracy obtainable when using
neutron activation
analysis
to establish the provenance of pottery. After determining the relative
