Using portable energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) analysis for on-site study of ceramic sherds at El Hibeh, Egypt

Portable EDXRF analysis of a mud brick necropolis enclosure: evidence of work organization, El Hibeh, Middle Egypt

“…Fifty mud brick samples then were tested for chemical composition using a NITON XLt-793W portable EDXRF unit according to the methodology established in Morgenstein and Redmount [11]. All geochemical analyses were undertaken in the field in Egypt and are reported in Table 2.…”

“…), a small limestone temple constructed by Sheshonq I (945e924) of the 22nd Dynasty (945e715) surrounded on three sides by a mud brick temenos wall, domestic areas, industrial facilities, and cemeteries [9]. El Hibeh has been sporadically investigated since the late 19th century [2,11,15].…”

Initial source evaluation of archaeological obsidian from the Kuril Islands of the Russian Far East using portable XRF

“…However, as a result of recent advances in XRF instrumentation, it is now possible to purchase (or build) at modest cost, small, portable, high-resolution XRF instruments with thermoelectrically-cooled detectors (that alleviate the need for liquid nitrogen). Dubbed portable XRF (PXRF), fieldportable XRF (FPXRF), or handheld XRF, such instrumentation has been used extensively in geology (e.g., Potts et al, 1995Potts et al, , 1997b, but relatively few published archaeological applications exist (but see Emery and Morgenstein, 2007;Morgenstein and Redmount, 2005;Pantazis et al, 2002;Potts et al, 1997a;Williams-Thorpe et al, 1999. Additionally, until very recently most portable XRF instruments used radioactive isotopes as the excitation source which complicated transportation of the equipment given state, federal, and international regulations governing the movement of radioactive materialsdespecially following the events of September 2001.…”

Among Polynesia's first pots

“…Two of the four tan paste sherds previously identified as foreign to Tonga also were analyzed. The use of pXRF instrumentation for archaeological provenance studies is relatively recent, but application to ceramics (Morgenstein and Redmount, 2005) and obsidian (Craig et al, 2007;Phillips and Speakman, 2009) illustrates its considerable potential. The Niton XL 3t analyzer employs a 50 kV miniaturized X-ray tube with in-built primary filters for sample excitation.…”