Advances in Archaeomaterials最新文献

This paper describes the first comprehensive study of metal artefacts found at ancient Kerma, Sudan. Covering a period of several millennia, it investigates the development of copper alloy recipes as well as metal provenance through the trace element and lead isotope ratio analysis of forty-eight sampled objects. These include grave goods as well as production waste related to large-scale bronze casting performed at Kerma. This study is part of a wider evaluation of copper alloy production at Kerma through targeted workshop excavation, materials analysis, and experimental archaeology. The analytical results illustrate the gradual and flexible transition from arsenical copper to tin bronze alloys over time, in a pattern similarly observed in ancient Egypt. Trace element distributions and lead isotope ratios for copper used at Kerma are comparable to those of contemporary Egyptian artefacts too. These findings indicate the exploitation of ores similar to those mined at the Sinai Peninsula, although copper ore deposits in Nubia remain poorly characterized and thus difficult to identify as source candidates. Nonetheless, it can be suggested that metal provisioning networks along the Nile Valley likely overlapped to varying degrees over time. These results provide an important contribution to the mapping of technological exchanges that took place between ancient Egypt and Nubia.

Brass, which appears golden in color, used to be a valuable alloy in ancient times. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Chinese used special furnaces to smelt zinc for minting and exporting to overseas in large quantities. Archeological findings have revealed the overall structure of the zinc smelting furnaces at the Tongmuling site during the Qing Dynasty. In this study, computational fluid dynamics software was employed to simulate airflow fields within a furnace. Consequently, we observed that airflows were concentrated at the center of the lower chamber, after which they dispersed into the upper chamber through ceramic pads and finally were evenly distributed between the retorts. Increasing furnace height and improving thermal convection in the lower chamber helped increase the furnace temperature. The ceramic pads adjusted the airflow to ensure that temperature distribution in the upper chamber was uniform, and they supported burning in the upper chamber by preventing collapse. Compared with the heap smelting process recorded in Heavenly Creations and the large crucible furnaces used in modern times, zinc smelting furnaces at the Tongmuling site possess a unique structure. They serve as a link between preceding and subsequent technologies, offering important evidence for exploring the development of ancient Chinese zinc smelting technologies.

Scholars in a wide range of disciplines are interested in the casting techniques used to create the extraordinary bronze objects unearthed from the two pits of the Sanxingdui site. Although researchers have carried out a number of studies on this topic, many technical details remain unclear. This paper offers the first examination of bronze objects from the Sanxingdui site using industrial computed tomography (CT) and provides direct evidence for interpretation of the complicated casting process involved. We show that multiple pouring and various joining techniques were widely used during the casting of bronze objects from the Sanxingdui pits. The precast parts were mechanically connected with one another by the later pouring, which was the crucial technique for the casting of complicated objects. Representative features include the cast-on cramp device of the sun-shaped objects and the tenon connection with dowel found inside many branches of the bronze trees. This paper also describes evidence of core rods made of different materials, which is the earliest example of this technique in ancient China.

This paper assesses the relationship between metallurgy and social change in prehistoric Thailand. One model proposes that for about 15 centuries after circa 2000 BCE, peaceful village communities, being acquainted with copper-base metallurgy through contact with northern stimuli, cast small personal ornaments with little if any innovations in casting technology or social change. The introduction of iron likewise had little social impact. A recent review of three volumes proposing this paradigm supports it while criticizing an alternative, which sees the advent of bronze technology as a direct stimulus to the rise of states. Based on hundreds of new radiocarbon determinations that reveal that the first copper-base axes and ornaments date to circa 1100–1000 BCE, this paper describes how the first copper-base implements and ornaments coincided with a rapid rise of socially elite aggrandizers living at the choke point of a natural exchange route. But this lasted for only six to eight generations, with no enduring social impact. Nor did iron per se engender social change. Rather, a nexus of interacting stimuli involving climate change and an agricultural revolution led to the rapid rise of early states.

The wealth and diversity of decoration on Greek pottery continues to attract science-based attention. The availability of increasingly powerful analytical techniques has allowed the nature of the decoration to be investigated in ever-finer detail, down to the nano-particle level. Such work has gone hand in hand with replication experiments ranging from sourcing raw materials to experimental firing. As a result, there is a fuller understanding of the many material and other factors controlling the quality of a range of painted or coloured decorations, most notably black gloss, seen to best effect in the Black and Red Figure–style vases of Attic potters-painters in the sixth to fourth centuries BC. Light has also been shed on the manner in which a few of these craftspeople adapted established techniques to give special effects.

Reviewing the progress made on the decoration and firing of several pottery classes as well as other ceramics, such as terracotta figurines, this paper places this information into context in two ways. On the one hand, it covers the corresponding evidence for the decoration and firing of pottery of the Greek Neolithic and Bronze Age to chart diachronically the craft's technological development. On the other hand, it considers recent archaeological evidence for ceramic production.

The bodies of 12 examples of imperial yellow Chinese porcelain dating from the early sixteenth century to the early twentieth century have been studied by atomic absorption spectroscopy. The yellow lead glaze was reserved for imperial use, and these fine monochrome porcelains played important roles in imperial rites at the summer solstice and as court wares within Beijing's Forbidden City. The project's aim has been to understand more fully the technologies used to make imperial yellow porcelains, which were significant ceramics in the history and culture of imperial China.

This paper concerns the porcelain body material, particularly the nature and use of Jingdezhen's two prime body materials — porcelain stone (cishi) and kaolin (gaoling). The 12 samples studied span four centuries of imperial porcelain production and include a major change in kaolin usage at Jingdezhen in the early seventeenth century, when the proportions of kaolin used in fine porcelain bodies rose abruptly from some 20% to 50%. This study explores the natures of both prepared rocks and looks particularly at kaolin, about which some long-standing problems remain.

The earliest cast iron in China dates to the 8th century BC and pre-dates the earliest European evidence by about two millennia. The invention of cast iron smelting is closely related to the pre-existing and contemporary technologies of casting bronze and firing ceramics as well as the social and political context of early 1st millennium BC China. A series of early iron smelting furnaces were surveyed, excavated, and scientifically analysed. However, in order to understand how cast iron was initially produced, the evidence from one of the earliest production sites was digitally simulated. This modelling allowed different potential methods for the underlying production technology to be evaluated. The explanation for the invention of cast iron lies both in borrowing and developing of techniques found in other contemporary pyrotechnologies as well as a contemporary systemic philosophical approach.