Archaeometallomics as a Tool for Studying Ancient Ceramics

Abstract

In this paper, the concept of archaeometallomics is put forward to study the role of metal elements in cultural relics. An example is the influence of metal elements in the identification of their origin, dating, authenticity and the technology used for the production of ancient ceramics. This analysis also provides the social and cultural connotations of the development process of that time and shows that there is a close relationship between the rich glaze varieties and the metal elements in porcelain. The application of different analytical techniques in studying metallic elements in ancient ceramics is also briefly summarized. The construction of a metal element composition database and the related questions in the glaze color-forming mechanism of ancient relics should be considered an important research direction for future works.

Metallomics in Multidisciplinary Research and the Analytical Advances

“…Agrometallomics was recently proposed as an interdisciplinary area between agriculture science and metallomics to fulfill this purpose. 24 In this issue, we are very pleased to see more branches of metallomics such as metrometallomics, 25 clinimetallomics, 26 radiometallomics, 27 matermetallomics, 28 and archaeometallomics 29 have been proposed, reflecting the prosperity of the metallomics field.…”

“…Cultural relics are leftovers from ancient human activities, and are important for archeological research. Feng et al 29 proposed archaeometallomics as a tool to systematically study the role of trace elements in cultural relics. They studied the origin, dating, color mechanism, and firing technology of ancient ceramics through archaeometallomics.…”

“…In addition to the commercially available instruments showcased by contributors in this issue 25,26,28,36,37, large scientific facilities also play a vital role in providing cutting-edge techniques for metallomics. 8,38 For example, in this issue, synchrotron radiation-based radiometallomics was covered by Zhao et al 27 and archaeometallomics by Feng et al 29 . The application of nuclear analytical techniques, including synchrotron radiation, neutron sources, and radioactive nuclides, has been summarized in reports on nanometallomics for nanotoxicological study.…”

Determination of Composition of Raw Materials for Porcelain Fabrication by XRF, TOF-SIMS, and XPS Methods for Further Porcelain Art Items Characterisation and Detection of Modern Counterfeits

“…So these results were not included in this paper. From other hand, AES could be very useful in studies such non-homogeneous objects as sintered ceramics [13] including painting layers [14] where various components of the ceramic mass and pigments differ by their composition.…”