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Neutron activation analysis of pottery from the Early Orientalizing kiln at Knossos1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Jonathan E. Tomlinson  and
Vassilis Kilikoglou
Jonathan E. Tomlinson
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Archaeometry
Vassilis Kilikoglou
Affiliation:
NCSR Demokritos
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Abstract

Seventeen pottery sherds from the seventh century BC pottery kiln uncovered at Knossos in 1993 were analysed by neutron activation at N.C.S.R. Demokritos. Fifteen of the seventeen sherds form an extremely homogeneous chemical group whose composition parallels Late Minoan I and Classical/Hellenistic pottery from Knossos. The two chemically different samples are also physically different, being much coarser and more severely burned.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 93 , November 1998 , pp. 385 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1998

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References

2 Coldstream, J. N. and Macdonald, C. F., ‘Knossos: Area of Southwest Houses Early Hellenic Occupation’, BSA 92 (1997). 191–245Google Scholar.

3 Coldstream and Macdonald (n. 2), Table 1, Deposit F.

4 KNOK = Knossos Orientalizing Kiln.

5 Tomlinson, J. E., ‘Provenance of Minoan Ceramics by Multivariate Analysis of Neutron Activation Data’, Ph.D. Thesis (University of Manchester, 1991Google Scholar), and J. E. Tomlinson and V. J. Robinson, ‘Neutron Activation Analysis of Minoan Pottery from Crete: The Search for Reference Groups’ (in preparation). The three Knossian groups defined from the Manchester laboratory's data are as follows: Group 1 = LM I A and I B; Group 2 = LM II and III A; Group 3 = LM III B. The Classical/Hellenistic material has Group 1 chemistry. See also J. A. Riley, ‘The Contribution of Ceramic Petrology to our understanding of Minoan Society’, 283–92 in Krzykowska, O. and Nixon, L. (eds), Minoan Society (Bristol, 1983)Google Scholar. Riley's petrographic analysis also reveals a chronological division: pottery from LM II onwards shows a marked increase in the number of microfossils, and in he LM III B period a change of fabric.

6 Coldstream and Macdonald (n. 2).

7 Kilikoglou, V. and Grimanis, A. P., ‘Chemical Characterization of Bronze Age Pottery from Greek South Aegean Islands by INAA’, Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Articles, Vol. 168, No. 2 (1993), 297–306CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Tomlinson, J. E., ‘Statistical Evaluation of the Asaro–Perlman Neutron Activation Data on Mycenaean Pottery from the Peloponnese’, BSA 92 (1997), 139–64Google Scholar.

9 Taylor, R. J. and Robinson, V. J., ‘Neutron Activation Analysis of Roman African Red Slip Ware Kilns’, Archaeometry, 38 (1996), 231–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Tomlinson and Robinson (n. 5). Group 1.

11 The data listed in Appendices 1 and 2 have been converted to the Manchester–Berkeley standard to allow direct comparison with the chemical reference groups defined from these laboratories’ data. Factors to be applied to the ‘raw’ Demokritos data were calculated on the basis of the reanalysis at Demokritos of some seventeen pottery samples previously analysed at Manchester. These conversion factors are as follows: Na 0.95, Ca 1.167, Sc 1.055, Cr 1.251, Fe 1.051, Co 1.046, Rb 0.984, Cs 0.927, La 1.011, Ce 0.966, Sm 1.01, Eu 0.641, Yb 0.944, Lu 0.995, Hf 1.046, Th 0.859, U 0.654.