Application of INAA to ancient bricks for grouping study using trace elements

Application of PIXE for the determination of transition elements in the grouping study of archaeological clay potteries

“…Elemental concentrations of clay potteries are more efficiently applied to provenance studies using key elements . The key elements are screened for grouping study based on the properties of non‐volatile and immobile nature and/or similar geochemical properties . The trace elements are important and have been proven to be the accurate finger prints in identification studies for distinguishing the samples collected from the same or different sites .…”

“…The trace elements are important and have been proven to be the accurate finger prints in identification studies for distinguishing the samples collected from the same or different sites . In our previous work, key elements such as Al, Sc Ti, Mn, Fe, V, Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, Sr, Y, Zr, and Nb have been used for the classification of artifacts . Alkali and alkaline earth metals composition might have been changed from the original recipe during the pottery preparation process and burial time due to high temperature and striking effects/leaching.…”

“…In archaeological studies, non‐destructive analytical techniques including instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), particle‐induced X‐ray emission PIXE, and X‐ray fluorescence (XRF) have been frequently applied for trace elemental determination in solid samples. INAA is one of the well‐known analytical techniques for simultaneous multielement determination at major to trace concentration in diverse matrices.…”

“…INAA is one of the well‐known analytical techniques for simultaneous multielement determination at major to trace concentration in diverse matrices. In our previous work, we used k 0 ‐based internal mono standard NAA (IM‐NAA) method using in situ relative detection efficiency to analyze large and non‐standards geometry samples for grouping study . The major advantage of IM‐NAA is that it does not require any external/internal standards for obtaining elemental concentration ratios .…”

Application of radioisotope XRF and thermoluminescence (TL) dating in investigation of pottery from Tell AL-Kasra archaeological site, Syria

“…A lot of analytical methods are widely applied nowadays for classifying the origin of archaeological pottery based on their chemical composition, among them particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE) and X-ray fluorescence analysis (Bakraji et al, 2011;Centeno et al, 2012;Roumie et al, 2010;Padilla et al, 2006;Attaelmanan and Mouton, 2014) and neutron activation analysis (NAA) (Sayre Edwared and Dodson, 1957;Bakraji, 2005;Dasari et al, 2013;Vaughn et al, 2006), as these methods permit the determination of multi-elements simultaneously with high sensitivity, accuracy and precision. The statistical treatment of the elemental concentration helps to determine similarities and correlations between the analyzed pottery fragments, and then classify the pottery sherds into groups.…”