PIXE and FCA study on the provenance of early celadons unearthed from Nanjing, China

Abstract

The trace elements play a unique role in the study of provenance and dating of ancient ceramics. For early celadon, due to its rough manufacturing process, the content of elements is relatively dispersed, leading to a certain difficulty in the recognition. Here, combined with fuzzy cluster analysis (FCA), proton induced X-ray emission (PIXE) technique are used to study the provenance of early celadon unearthed from Nanjing area. On the basic of the establishment of the PIXE database of trace elements of Yue celadons from kiln sites by continuous supplement and improvement, 5 early celadons from Nanjing area are compared with 49 samples of Yue celadons extracted from PIXE database, by using the self-developed FCA program based on the trace elements. It was found that Yue celadon has a long-time and stable source of raw material for body, and that the only two samples, among 5 early celadons unearthed from Nanjing area, might origin from Zhejiang area. It provided a new and reliable analytical method for the provenance of ancient ceramics.