Provenienzanalysen im Vergleich. Neue Wege zur archäometrischen Untersuchung phönizischer Keramik

Abstract

Today, the usual archaeometric laboratory methods for the provenance analysis of ceramics offer high precision and thus a fine differentiation of the sample material. However, high costs and the fact that a sample is required prevent the examination of large quantities of ceramics, as required by archaeology. The project for the archaeometric examination of Phoenician ceramics from the Iberian Peninsula faced the same problem when its continuation was planned. Now, new developments in the area of analytical instruments provide the possibility to analyse ceramics with portable X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis instruments (p- XRF) directly on-site, quickly and almost without destruction. As corresponding instruments in archaeometry are still in a pioneer phase, a comparative test on the suitability of the method was performed. Hereby, around 200 samples of Phoenician ceramics previously measured with the Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) were re-analysed using the p-XRF, and the data were subjected to a comparative statistical analysis. The results showed that the p-XRF in principle produced the same groupings as the INAA. Even though its demonstration sensitivity is lower compared to the laboratory methods, it offers the possibility to drastically increase the number of samples.