Combined studies for the determination of the composition and the firing temperature of ancient and contemporary ceramic artefacts

Highlights: • For the thorough study of ceramic artefacts different supplementary techniques must be used. • Archaeological ceramics were made of calcareous clay, rich in Fe, by firing at about 700 °C–850 °C. • Contemporary ceramics were made of earthen clay, rich in Fe, by firing at around 1000 °C. -- Abstract: The subject of the present work is the presentation of an integrated approach to ceramic artefacts characterization with the use of various physical-chemical techniques, in order to determine their main components and manufacturing conditions (firing temperature and atmosphere). Ceramics are very complicated regarding their mineralogical composition. Moreover, they undergo physical and chemical alterations during firing, which depend on their original composition, and on the highest temperature, duration and conditions of firing. Therefore, the use of a single analytical technique is not sufficient for their study. In this work, the supplementary techniques of Optical Microscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy – Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and simultaneous Thermogravimetric – Differential Thermal Analysis (TG/DTG-DTA) are complementary used for the study of ceramics. With the use of the above techniques two archaeological ceramic vessels from Cyprus were thoroughly examined. The combinational processing of all data led to an estimation of both their composition and the highest firing temperature used. To evaluate this estimation, the same procedure was applied on contemporary ceramic artefacts from two different places in Greece. The resulting conclusions for the contemporary ceramics are in good agreement with the information provided by their manufacturers.