Painting and Firing Technology in the Late Bronze Age Saronic Gulf: A study of ceramic microstructures by SEM

Summary

The end of the Bronze Age in the Saronic Gulf boasts at least three pottery production centers, at Kontopigado, Attica, on the north part of the island of Aegina and in northeast Corinthia. All three produce a similar range of goods and although each has a different set of production practices, certain technological information was shared.

Focusing on the painted fineware pottery it is evident that all three centers decorated pots with dark-on-light motifs using either red or black paint. Analysis by SEM-EDS demonstrates that both red and black paints were manufactured using iron-rich raw materials indicating that each center used a three stage firing sequence. Macroscopic and microstructural evidence indicate that all three centers shared this highly technical knowledge, but not all had the right locally available raw materials to produce high quality black paints.

This paper focuses on the analysis of both black and red paints by SEM-EDS. Through this analysis we have reconstructed certain surface decoration and firing technology in the production of Mycenaean fineware pottery. The results of this study present new insight into the different practices of neighboring production centers, the sharing of technological knowledge and how it was applied using locally source raw materials.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage