The Decoration and Firing of Ancient Greek Pottery: A Review of Recent Investigations
December 2021
The wealth and diversity of decoration on Greek pottery continues to attract science-based attention. The availability of increasingly powerful analytical techniques has allowed the nature of the decoration...
Invention of cast iron smelting in early China: Archaeological survey and numerical simulation
June 2021
The earliest cast iron in China dates to the 8th century BC and pre-dates the earliest European evidence by about two millennia. The invention of cast iron smelting is closely related to the pre-existing...
Plating and Surface Treatments on Ancient Metalwork
December 2020
This paper presents an overview of techniques employed in antiquity—in different regions and at different times—for decorating metals by plating or applying surface treatments. Quite often the intention...
A Review of the History of Research in Lost-Wax Casting in Bronze Age China Over the Past Century
December 2022
This study analyzes in detail the last century of scholarly study, in China and internationally, into China's Bronze Age lost-wax casting techniques. It finds that research beginning in the early twentieth...
Glassmaking of the Qing Dynasty: A Review, New Data, and New Insights
December 2020
Full major and minor chemical compositions, including F, B, As, and Cl, have been produced quantitatively using EPMA for glass samples originating from the Qing Dynasty glass collection of the Bristol...
A journey of over 200 years: early studies on wootz ingots and new evidence from Konasamudram, India
June 2021
Recent new evidence emerged from the crucible steel production site of Konasamudram, Telangana, India. A hoard of 60 crucible steel ingots from this site offers a unique opportunity to study details...
Archaeomaterials, Innovation, and Technological Change
December 2020
The field of archaeomaterials research has enormous potential to shed light on past innovation processes. However, this potential has been only partially recognized outside its immediate practitioners,...
An AAS study of Chinese imperial yellow porcelain bodies and their place in the history of Jingdezhen's porcelain development
June 2021
The bodies of 12 examples of imperial yellow Chinese porcelain dating from the early sixteenth century to the early twentieth century have been studied by atomic absorption spectroscopy. The yellow...
Casting the Buddha across Southern Asia
2023
The production of copper alloy devotional images of the Buddha probably began in northern India sometime in the late second century CE but certainly by the third century. From there the transmission...
Chinese cloisonné revisited
December 2022
Two papers examining Ming cloisonné enamels on metal and Chinese fahua glazes on ceramics were published in 1989. The analytical work was carried out at the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the...
Ritual use, consumption, and depositional practices at Agriomernos Cave, Northwestern Samos (Greece): A ceramic analytical approach
2024
This study utilises pottery as a proxy to identify patterns of use and consumption, as well as depositional strategies at Agriomernos, a recently discovered cave site on Samos Island (Greece). This...
The origin and development of Chinese ceramic saggers
2024
By combing and analyzing ancient literature, archaeological data, and test data, this paper systematically explores the origin, material, and development of the sagger firing process in ancient China....
Revisiting the addition of tin and lead in Chinese bronzes: A statistical perspective
December 2022
During the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, China was distinctive for its use of leaded tin bronze, which diverged from bronzes in the Eurasian steppe. A reanalysis of published chemical data of late Shang...
Chinese mirrors from the burials of the nomads of Eastern Europe of the second half of the 1st millennium BC-first centuries AD: Typology, chronology, distribution and technology of manufacture
June 2021
The article is devoted to the Chinese mirrors found in the burials of the nomads of Asian Sarmatia. The typology and chronology of mirrors is presented, the earliest of which dates back to the period...
Characterising Chinese Ru ware in the Sir Percival David collection at the British Museum using handheld XRF analysis
December 2022
Ru ware is a very rare and highly prized stoneware from the end of the Northern Song period of China (960–1127 CE). Stylistic and art historical work by Regina Krahl (2021) suggests that a brush washer...
Investigation on restoration materials and techniques on bronze artifacts using non-invasive imaging and spectroscopic methods
2024
•Non-invasive imaging techniques reveal the characterization and the spatial distributions of restoration materials and techniques applied on bronze artefacts.•The bronze artefacts were repaired through...
Identifying recipes of historical cupels from Yunnan, China
2024
Cupellation was the most important silver extraction technology in the ancient world. No later than the Han Dynasty, China adopted cupellation in silver extraction. However, the cupel, the most significant...
X-ray computed tomography reveals special casting techniques used with unusual bronze objects unearthed from the Sanxingdui site
June 2022
Scholars in a wide range of disciplines are interested in the casting techniques used to create the extraordinary bronze objects unearthed from the two pits of the Sanxingdui site. Although researchers...
Soil, Hands, and Heads: An Ethnoarchaeological Study on Local Preconditions of Pottery Production in the Wei River Valley (Northern China)
December 2020
This study combines an analysis of archaeological remains, geographic background, and ethnoarchaeological research to gain insights into preconditions and processes of pottery making in northern China...
From the hills to the sea: Mineralogical and chemical characterization of a roof tile assemblage from the Byzantine church at Ashdod-Yam (Israel)
2024
This paper presents the results of a multidisciplinary approach characterizing roof tiles excavated at the Ashdod-Yam Byzantine church (Israel). Occupied from the late fourth/early fifth century CE,...
Four centuries of cooking wares at Priene: Tracing transformation in supply and trade patterns in western Asia minor (Turkey)
December 2022
This paper presents the results of a diachronic and multidisciplinary investigation into the production and consumption of cooking ware in the ancient city of Priene (Turkey). Three major chronological...
Surface matters: Decarburising wootz crucible steel ingots
2023
Wootz, the Indian crucible steel, is a hypereutectoid iron–carbon alloy and famous for its outstanding qualities. Due to the paucity of archaeological and historical ingot finds and conservative sampling...
Ipsa and Odong: Decorative metalwork of Korea
2023
Inlay and patination are important elements in the prestige metalwork of East and Southeast Asia. There are several regional varieties, but they have many features in common, particularly in the use...
Copper at ancient Kerma: A diachronic investigation of alloys and raw materials
June 2022
•First overview of Kerma copper alloys.•Trace element and lead isotope data for forty-eight artefacts.•Flexible alloying strategies from Middle Kerma period onwards.•Possibly shared provisioning networks...
