Ceramics from Roman Galilee: A Comparison of Several Techniques for Fabric Characterization

Abstract

AbstractAbstractAn extensive local provenience study of common pottery from Roman Galilee and Golan was carried out, employing neutron activation analysis. This pottery was then examined by binocular microscopy, xeroradiography and thin-section analysis and the results compared with the grouping by neutron activation analysis in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the former techniques for classifying these ceramic fabrics. It was found that xeroradiography alone would have led to the incorrect categorization of the pottery corpus, even at the level of major fabric groups. Thin-section analysts, on the other hand, was seen to be an effective means for sorting the collection into major fabric categories that comport with those defined by neutron activation analysis. In some cases, the description of micromorphological subgroups, comparable to the compositional subgroups distinguished by neutron activation analysis, was also possible. This discriminating classification by thin-section analysis was achieved by study of both the pottery matrix and its mineral composition. A description of this dual approach and its importance for pottery classification is presented.