Abstract
Ancient ceramics recovered after a long burial period have probably undergone several alterations and contaminations, introducing a chemical variability, affecting the ceramic’s natural variability. That is, the chemical and the mineralogical compositions of the ceramic pastes after their deposition will not be the same as they originally were. Therefore, it is known that the alteration and contamination processes, and the discrimination of some elements, should be considered when studying the ceramics to avoid incorrect interpretations about their provenance, technology and the use of the artefact, as well as its proper preservation. In the present work, the authors performed an experimental approach in order to study the alterations and contaminations that occurred in 60 ceramic cylinders buried in two different underwater environments. Once the pieces were taken out from the water environments, they were characterized by a multi-analytical approach. For this purpose, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy–energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM–EDS) and Raman spectroscopy were used. Newly formed minerals of different forms have been identified, with different crystallization grades. Some examples are the needles, flakes, sponges and long and short prisms composed of several elements such as Ca, F, S and O.
Highlights
Ancient ceramics recovered after a long burial period have probably undergone several alterations and contaminations
The diffractogram of PF-09 control-piece, in which larnite was present, is published in Supplementary Materials (Figure S1). When it comes to the X-ray diffraction (XRD) results of the marine PF test-pieces (Table 6) fired at 850 ◦C (PF001–003), the amount of calcite and gehlenite was greater in PF001 (3 months of immersion) than it occurred in PT samples fired at 850 ◦C for the reasons explained above
Results of the PF test-pieces immersed in tap water were almost the same as those of the PT test-pieces, very few changes were identified in the phases of the samples of different burial periods (Table 6)
Summary
Ancient ceramics recovered after a long burial period have probably undergone several alterations and contaminations. Authors manufactured and fired calcareous ceramic briquettes of a known composition, and subjected them to a variety of aqueous solutions, which their pH and temperature (at 25 ◦C and 90 ◦C) were monitored Thanks to these studies (real cases and experimental approaches), it is known that alteration and contamination processes and the discrimination of some elements should be considered when studying the ceramics to avoid incorrect interpretations about their provenance, technology and the use of the artefact as well as its proper preservation [1,6,8,13,19,21,30]. Salinity is the amount of solids dissolved in one kilogram of seawater, which determines, among other factors, the oxidation-reduction capacity [32]
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