Particle Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) and Its Applications for Ceramic Analysis

Abstract

Systematic research into art and cultural heritage objects in museum collections are growing daily across the world. They are generally undertaken in partnership with archaeologists, curators, historians, conservators, and restorers. The use of scientific methods to answer specific questions about objects produced by different societies reveals the materials and technologies used in the past and gives us a better understanding of the history of migration processes, cultural characteristics, and thereby more grounded parameters for the preservation and conservation of cultural heritage. The use of non-destructive methods, such as the PIXE analysis, is very suitable in such studies because damage or alteration is avoided and the integrity of the object maintained. Such techniques gave historians and curators at the Archaeological and Ethnology Museum in São Paulo new understanding of the Chimu collection of ceramics as well as of the technical process of preventive conservation.