An archaeometric approach to the majolica pottery from alcazar of Nájera archaeological site

Abstract

The city of Nájera, located in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, hosts an alcazar of Arab origin, which became the residence of the king of Pamplona-Nájera and later of the duke and duchess of Nájera. From this last period (1500-1600) date the ceramics that were unearthed during the recent excavations of the Alcázar of Nájera. These findings constitute the largest post-Medieval assemblage of ceramic pieces unearthed in the city. They include a large set of plain tin-lead glazed pieces of tableware, as well as some mono or polychrome decorated sherds. In this work, an archaeometric characterization was carried out on a subsample of these ceramics (n = 94) by means of a multi-analytical strategy. The pastes were analyzed chemically and mineralogically by ICP-MS and XRD, respectively. Further evaluations on a subsample of ceramic glazes was carried out by SEM-EDS and Raman microscopy. The preliminary results enabled establishing a main large compositional group (NAJ-A) and a smaller one (NAJ-B) which could tentatively be linked to a local production origin. Moreover, exogenous provenances such as Muel and Talavera were identified after the comparison with data from other Spanish contemporary majolica pottery productions.

Composition and technological features of ceramics manufactured by Benito de Valladares in the seventeenth century from the Alcazar Palace in Seville, Spain

“…The differences between the formation of one or two layers may be attributed to the manufacturing processes. The colors obtained using Sb (mainly yellow but also orange and brown) always showed two layers; the remaining upper layer separated due to this chemical element not dissolving into the glazes, whereas Co or Cu used to obtain blue or green colors dissolved easily in the glaze phase and may be distributed along the entire glaze layers [42]. A coperta layer, added specifically to glazes [42,43], was not observed in the Benito de Valladares or Augusta tiles.…”

“…The colors obtained using Sb (mainly yellow but also orange and brown) always showed two layers; the remaining upper layer separated due to this chemical element not dissolving into the glazes, whereas Co or Cu used to obtain blue or green colors dissolved easily in the glaze phase and may be distributed along the entire glaze layers [42]. A coperta layer, added specifically to glazes [42,43], was not observed in the Benito de Valladares or Augusta tiles. Perez-Rodriguez found a coperta layer in the ceramics of the Santa Paula convent gate in Seville, which were manufactured by Niculoso Pisano at the beginning of the sixteenth century (data not published).…”

A Tale of Two Tiles: Characterization of Floor Tiles from the Nineteenth-Century Akko Tower Shipwreck (Israel)

“…Bindheimite (Pb 2 Sb 2 O 7 ) and a small content (less than 5 wt %) of lead-tin oxide (Pb 2 SnO 4 ) were also observed. These pigments are known as Naples yellow, which was commonly used in majolica technology [29,60,65,[69][70][71], and lead tin yellow type I [61,69,72,73], respectively, and were used to produce a yellow glaze.…”

Chemistry for cultural heritage: connecting past and future

“…Finally, archaeometric investigations of ceramics from Alcazar of Nájera (Spain) and Byzantine pottery from Păcuiul lui Soare (Romania) archaeological sites were performed by Calparsoro et al [24] and Bugoi et al [25] in trying to establish the provenance and/or the consumption and circulation of pottery in specific geographical regions and time periods.…”