Calibration and Visualization of Wall-Thickness and Porosity Distributions of Ceramics Using X-radiography and Image Processing

Methodological aspects of SANS and TOF neutron diffraction measurements on pottery: the case of Miseno and Cuma

“…Here we will focus on techniques which probe the structure of the sample at a microscopic and mesoscopic level, to investigate intact ceramic artefacts and pottery sherds. The description of the bulk properties of ceramic samples, such as pottery finds, can indeed be done in terms of a hierarchy of structures of growing size, going from the elements [12,13,34], to the mineral phases [20,36,37], the aggregates, the texture pattern [17], the petrographic properties [24,28] and finally the macroscopic inhomogeneities [3,7,8,29].…”

A non-destructive technique for measuring ceramic porosity using liquid nitrogen

“…Heimann [12] developed a technique for measuring macroporosity in which he made a replica of the sherd surface, mounted it on a slide, and point-counted the pores larger than a given size. Other researchers [21,32] have used xeroradiography to quantify pore spaces. A third possible method consists of the microscopic examination of thin-sectioned sherds.…”

Looking through pots: recent advances in ceramics X-radiography

“…They concluded that all methods can potentially be distinguished by characteristic features detectable through visual inspection and optical microscopy. Arguing that wall thickness is directly related to fashioning technique, Pierret and his colleagues utilised specific filters and calibrations to extracted relevant quantitative data from digitised X-ray films of three sherds (Pierret et al, 1996). Their results indicate that coiling with shaping on the wheel, coiling with thinning and shaping on the wheel and throwing can be distinguished by different thickness patterns vertically across a sherd.…”