Neutron Activation Analysis of Ancient Roman Potsherds

Abstract

THIRTY-TWO fragments of Roman samian ware have been analysed for their sodium and manganese content, using neutron activation and γ-ray spectrometry. They were chosen from at least 10 of about 30 factories at which this fine-grained pinkish-red Roman table-ware was manufactured. The body of the sherds from all factories is very similar in appearance and a chemical method was sought to differentiate between factories. Similar analyses on other types of pottery have been done by Sayre et al. ^1,2 at Brookhaven National Laboratory, who found quantitative chemical differences in material from different places. Our results, summarized in Table 1, for 10 or more of the factories, show that this also holds in general for samian ware.