Combining depth analysis with surface morphology analysis to analyse the prehistoric painted pottery from Majiayao Culture by confocal 3D-XRF

Abstract

The Majiayao Culture (3300 BC–2900 BC) formed one of the three painted pottery centres of the Yellow River basin, China, in prehistoric times. Painted pottery from this period is famous for its exquisite workmanship and meticulous painting. Studying the layer structure and element distribution of the paint on the pottery is conducive to investigating its workmanship, which is important for archaeological research. However, the most common analysis methods are destructive. To investigate the layers of paint on the pottery nondestructively, a confocal three-dimensional micro-X-ray fluorescence set-up combined with two individual polycapillary lenses has been used to analyse two painted pottery fragments. Nondestructive elemental depth analyses and surface topographic analysis were performed. The elemental depth profiles of Mn, Fe and Ca obtained from these measurements were consistent with those obtained using an optical microscope. The depth profiles show that there are layer structures in two samples. The images show that the distribution of Ca is approximately homogeneous in both painted and unpainted regions. In contrast, Mn appeared only in the painted regions. Meanwhile, the distributions of Fe in the painted and unpainted regions were not the same. The surface topographic shows that the pigment of dark-brown region was coated above the brown region. These conclusions allowed the painting process to be inferred.