abstract
The thick Pliocene clay beds located along the mouth of the Guadalhorce River in Malaga were used in the Roman era for amphorae production related to the ever-growing production of garum and salted fish. As a first step in their archaeometric characterization, a series of firing tests on the potential raw material have been carried out. The main aim of this work is to obtain a suitable tool for estimating the firing temperatures of those amphorae, as well as to make a comprehensive evaluation of the potential of an innovative external-standard method for measuring the amorphous content of a pottery sample, the G-factor method. The obtained results emphasize a highly amorphous content, over 50 wt% in some samples, which varies with the firing temperature. This shows the potential of this technique, which allows straightforward fully quantitative mineralogical analysis and a mineralogical comparison even between samples fired at very different temperatures.
keywords
EXTERNAL STANDARD METHOD; AMORPHOUS CONTENT; RAW-MATERIALS; POTTERY; CLAY; QUANTIFICATION; TEMPERATURE; STONEWARE; PORCELAIN; HYDRATION
subject category
Archaeology; Chemistry; Geology
authors
Compana, JM; Cabeza, A; Macias, J; Aranda, MAG; Leon-Reina, L
our authors
Groups
acknowledgements
We thank Dr Terry Moxon, Auckley, Doncaster, UK, for providing the agate used as external standard, Dr Jaume Coll Conesa, Museo Nacional de Ceramica y Artes Suntuarias 'Gonzalez Marti', Valencia, Spain, for his advice in designing the firing process, and Mr Alvaro Torrejon for his help in making the clay briquettes. Financial support from FQM-113 (Junta de Andalucia) research grants is acknowledged. JMC also thanks MICINN for his FPU studentship.