Identification of mineral inclusions in archaeological ceramics using microbeam X-ray fluorescence spectrometry

Archaeological ceramics are subjected to chemical and geochemical analyses in order to ascertain production techniques and provenance. Many analytical techniques are currently available for the determination of qualitative and quantitative characteristics pertaining to clay composition and structure. Microbeam XRF is utilised in this report to analyse mineral inclusions present in Mleiha ceramics in order to establish better provenance data. A total of 67 mineral inclusions of different sizes and colours were analysed. The majority of the sampled inclusions (94%) were silicates, and only 6% were calcites. A total of 35 inclusions from the former group were olivine minerals composed of a mixture of Mg, Si, and Fe oxides constituting 87-99% of the inclusions' mass, in addition to 13 inclusions composed mainly of Al, Si, and Ca oxides with sum concentrations ranging from 80% to 98%. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.