Analysis of the elemental composition of Tang Sancai from the four major kilns in China using EDXRF

Abstract

Tang Sancai was widely used in the Tang Dynasty, and the study of this pottery provides information about the sociocultural aspects of the Tang people. To understand the characteristics of the different kilns for the production of Tang Sancai, Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) was used to analyze 174 Tang Sancai shards. These specimens were selected from four production centers in the Tang Dynasty, namely, the Huangye Kiln, the Huangbu Kiln, the Xing Kiln and the Liquanfang Kiln. The results demonstrate that the clay bodies from different kilns have varying compositions, and each kiln has a unique elemental fingerprint. Of the 17 elements analyzed, TiO2 and Fe2O3 had distinctly different contents in the samples from the Huangye Kiln and the Huangbu Kiln. For the Xing Kiln and the Huangye Kiln, the characteristic elements are Fe2O3 and MnO. For the Xing Kiln and the Huangbu Kiln, the most dissimilar elements are TiO2, MnO and ZnO. When the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was employed, the data points for the Huangye Kiln, the Huangbu Kiln and the Xing Kiln fell into distinct areas. For the Liquanfang Kiln, the contents of Al2O3 and Fe2O3 in white-bodied samples are different from those of other colors, which indicates that at least two types of raw materials were used. When compared with the white-bodied samples from the other three kilns, the white-bodied samples from the Liquanfang Kiln were found to have compositions similar to those of the samples from the Huangye Kiln, rather than the Huangbu Kiln, although the latter is much closer geographically than the former. All the obtained data provide valuable scientific criteria for provenance identification for Tang Sancai of unknown origin.