{"title":"The origin and development of Chinese ceramic saggers","authors":"Junming Wu, Chao Lei, Yimei Jiang, Riqin Shan, Jinxia Hai, Xiaoyan Xia","doi":"10.1016/j.aia.2024.100028","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aia.2024.100028","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>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. Saggers were first recorded in <em>Tao Ji</em> (Records on Ceramic) written by Jiang Qi in the Southern Song Dynasty. The word <em>sagger</em> was coined by Song Yingxing in <em>Tian Gong Kai Wu</em> of the Ming Dynasty. The development of saggers can be divided into three stages: the germination stage of the bowls and jars of saggers before the Eastern Jin Dynasty; the initial stage of perforated saggers from the late Eastern Jin Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty; and the development and maturity period of various saggers after the Sui Dynasty. The raw material recipe has gone from a single-component formula using refractory mud, clay, and other raw materials; to a two-component formula with clay as the matrix mixed with quartz sand or white clay; to multi-component formulas including white clay, black clay, and black and yellow sand. Loading and firing have undergone an evolution, from nested firing to single-box upward firing, to a combination of inner and outer boxes, and finally to branch ring covering firing. The evolution of saggar materials and firing methods reflects the improvement of saggar performance, which improves both the output and quality of ceramics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100038,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Archaeomaterials","volume":"5 ","pages":"Article 100028"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144290889","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Xinyuan Su , Zhanhui Peng , Tao Tan , Huifang Liu , Huiping Xing , Baoying Liu , Xiaolian Chao
{"title":"Comprehensive analysis and study of the stratification phenomena of painted pottery unearthed from the Banpo site in China","authors":"Xinyuan Su , Zhanhui Peng , Tao Tan , Huifang Liu , Huiping Xing , Baoying Liu , Xiaolian Chao","doi":"10.1016/j.aia.2025.100054","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aia.2025.100054","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Historical information is preserved in cultural artifacts, particularly pottery, and scientific techniques are crucial for uncovering their past. This study presents a multi-method interdisciplinary analysis of painted pottery from the Banpo site of the Yangshao culture. Element profiles and XPS analyses reveal that variations in trivalent iron content, responsible for different hues, are due to diverse firing atmospheres during the kiln’s stack firing rather than the use of a masking layer or different clay types. XRD analysis revealed that the ceramic body was primarily composed of quartz and feldspar. SEM-EDS indicates that black regions at the pottery’s base resulted from carbon penetration, likely due to its use as cooking utensils. Pigment analysis shows the red pigment is mainly ocher, the black pigment is a symbiotic combination of pyrolusite and magnetite, and the white pigment is calcite. Thermal expansion analysis confirms that the pottery was fired at around 1010 °C, with color differences attributed to the kiln atmosphere rather than firing temperature, supporting a single firing process. This research provides essential data for enhancing our understanding of Banpo painted pottery, offering valuable insights into its production and usage.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100038,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Archaeomaterials","volume":"6 ","pages":"Article 100054"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145099341","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ao Sun, Huimin Wu, Tian Liu, Yuchen Wang, Siran Liu
{"title":"Identifying recipes of historical cupels from Yunnan, China","authors":"Ao Sun, Huimin Wu, Tian Liu, Yuchen Wang, Siran Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.aia.2025.100044","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aia.2025.100044","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>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 physical evidence of this process, is not frequently identified archaeologically in China and is rarely analyzed to reconstruct the technology and material characteristics of the process. Here we present new findings from the sites of Beiyachang and Baixiangchang in Dali, Yunnan. Five used cupel fragments from the two sites were generally dated to the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Chemical and microscopic analyses show that the cupels were made primarily of a mixture of bone ash (∼30–50 wt %) and plant ash (∼50–70 wt %). Intriguingly, Chinese historical documents recorded only plant ash as the raw material of cupels and did not mention bone ash until the nineteenth century AD. Thus the current analytical result provides the first physical evidence of cupels made with a bone ash and plant ash mixture in historical China.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100038,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Archaeomaterials","volume":"5 ","pages":"Article 100044"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143843288","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Investigation on restoration materials and techniques on bronze artifacts using non-invasive imaging and spectroscopic methods","authors":"Wei Liu , Pengyu Zhang , Yuliang Zhao , Na Wu","doi":"10.1016/j.aia.2025.100043","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aia.2025.100043","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Archaeological bronze artifacts are often found in fragmented or damaged states during excavation, necessitating restoration before they can be displayed in exhibitions. However, many early restoration works lack detailed documentation, posing significant challenges for museum conservators and scientists who want to reanalyze these restored artifacts. Reconstructing past restoration processes via scientific analysis is becoming a fundamental job. Previous studies on restoration materials and techniques for bronze artifacts have mostly relied on micro-analytical and invasive techniques, which are limited in providing comprehensive restoration information about artifacts as a whole. The present study employed imaging techniques, including macro X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, X-ray radiography, and ultraviolet-induced visible luminescence imaging, in combination with Raman spectroscopy and fiber optics reflectance spectroscopy, to investigate two bronze artifacts dated to the early Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BCE) in the collection of the National Museum of China. The results indicated that one of the artifacts, a bronze vessel (<em>yan</em>), exhibited extensive surface cracks and a large missing piece, which had been repaired using a copper plate joined with tin-lead soldering. Both artifacts showed evidence of surface retouching with pigments such as lithopone, lazurite, phthalocyanine blue, barium white, and chrome yellow. Lithopone, in particular, helps researchers estimate the restoration period of these artifacts, providing valuable insight into their conservation history. The integration of imaging and spectroscopic techniques proves to be an effective approach for characterizing the restoration materials and techniques applied to bronze artifacts, helping conservators in assessing the condition of restored bronze artifacts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100038,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Archaeomaterials","volume":"5 ","pages":"Article 100043"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143526929","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Erratum regarding missing Declaration of Competing Interests in previously published articles","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.aia.2025.100045","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aia.2025.100045","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":100038,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Archaeomaterials","volume":"5 ","pages":"Article 100045"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144105032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ritual use, consumption, and depositional practices at Agriomernos Cave, Northwestern Samos (Greece): A ceramic analytical approach","authors":"Sergios Menelaou , Edyta Marzec , Fotis Georgiadis , Stella Katsarou , Anastasios Siros , Andreas Darlas","doi":"10.1016/j.aia.2024.100041","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aia.2024.100041","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>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 discovery challenges our understanding of human–landscape interaction within a marginal region across two distinct prehistoric chronological episodes. As part of a broader research project, this paper presents the results from an integrated, multiscale analysis of pottery through morpho-stylistic and macroscopic examination, thin section petrography, and wavelength dispersive X–ray fluorescence spectroscopy (WD-XRF). The analysis has revealed a compositionally diverse ceramic assemblage that represents a range of different raw material sources on the island and, by extension, different groups of people. The identification of off-island imports adds new evidence to the reconstruction of Aegean connectivity patterns. Agriomernos Cave constitutes a key archaeological site within an area previously unexplored, offering a unique opportunity to investigate ancient mobility, landscape sacrality, and ritual performances manifested through periodical and repeated acts of deposition.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":100038,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Archaeomaterials","volume":"5 ","pages":"Article 100041"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667136024000141/pdfft?md5=4c6b3215fcca25da9ca7fcaccc62d32b&pid=1-s2.0-S2667136024000141-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142229798","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Philip Ebeling , Liora Bouzaglou , Dana Ashkenazi , Johannes H. Sterba , Alexander Fantalkin
{"title":"From the hills to the sea: Mineralogical and chemical characterization of a roof tile assemblage from the Byzantine church at Ashdod-Yam (Israel)","authors":"Philip Ebeling , Liora Bouzaglou , Dana Ashkenazi , Johannes H. Sterba , Alexander Fantalkin","doi":"10.1016/j.aia.2024.100040","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aia.2024.100040","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>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, the building was destroyed by fire toward the end of the sixth century CE, sealed by tiles from the roof's collapse. The assemblage of 3846 roof tiles was initially classified through macroscopic and typological analysis. Selected samples were further subjected to optical microscopy of petrographic samples for provenance studies and ceramic technological insights, along with instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). The findings reveal the artifacts to be imported from the eastern Mediterranean ophiolitic complexes and from the Judean Hills. Additionally, fragments of painted ceramic roof tiles were tested using scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) to assess the composition of the pigments, examine their microstructures, and understand the manufacturing technologies used. Despite the presence of different types of roof tiles, the paint applied to some of them was found to be uniform, consisting of red, ocher-based pigment, likely sourced locally and applied during the roof's construction. This comprehensive examination on a relatively unexplored type of material sheds new light on specific construction choices during the Byzantine period in the southern Levant.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100038,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Archaeomaterials","volume":"5 ","pages":"Article 100040"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143526928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The use and disappearance of vegetal fibres in clay–sand mixtures in furnace walls in pre-seventeenth-century iron smelting sites in the Chūgoku region (Japan)","authors":"Xavier Michel-Tanaka (Associate professor)","doi":"10.1016/j.aia.2024.100030","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aia.2024.100030","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates the importance of the presence of vegetal fibres within clay–sand mixtures in Japanese furnace walls in iron smelting sites in the Chūgoku region during the antique and medieval periods. This presence is all the more interesting as these fibres disappeared with the advent of tatara, the traditional Japanese iron smelting process, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Understanding this disappearance is a major challenge in the study of the evolution of iron reduction in Japan. The data from archaeological excavations, despite a few scattered clues, are not yet able to give us a sufficiently clear picture of the presence or absence of these fibres in the clay–sand mixture that makes up the furnace walls. Therefore this study highlights the need for systematic research by the creation of a database combined with further analyses and experiments to understand the role fibres might have had in the iron smelting process and why they disappeared from the tatara process in Japan.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100038,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Archaeomaterials","volume":"4 ","pages":"Article 100030"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143293687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Casting the Buddha across Southern Asia","authors":"Donna Strahan","doi":"10.1016/j.aia.2024.100029","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aia.2024.100029","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>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 of copper alloy Buddha sculpture technology traveled across Asia, beginning with the earliest known images from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Hindu Kush regions then moving across northern India. It continued north into western China, across China, and into Korea and Japan. As the religion spread, the need for sculptures also traveled a southern route, from India into Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Early representations of the Buddha were interpreted differently from region to region, with a range of views about how to use and understand the imagery. Transmission of technique came along with the transmission of style. However, where materials were not available, an evolution of alternative materials and methods developed. These different technologies affected style, producing images of varied appearances. This paper focuses on early casting developments along the southern route from the fourth through the ninth centuries CE.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100038,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Archaeomaterials","volume":"4 ","pages":"Article 100029"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143294086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}