Figure 13

Melted palace roofing clay. (a) Artist’s cutaway depiction of typical roof construction at TeH. The construction involved sequentially plastering multiple layers of clay (~ 10 cm or more in total thickness) over a bed of leaves and straw placed over wood beams. “Melted clay” inset at middle right is a photo of melted roofing clay still displaying horizontal layers of clay plaster. (b) Fragment of melted roofing clay exhibiting ~ 2-mm-diameter tubular holes left after incineration of straw; (c) artist’s depiction, re-creating protruding straw before burning; (d) SEM image is the end-view of the hole left by burned straw embedded in roofing clay; (e) manually constructed EDS-based phase map of the same image, showing composition as determined by SEM–EDS; red represents melted clay matrix, green represents high-silica glass (60–90 wt.% SiO₂) formed from melted silicified straw, and blue represents the silica-rich interior of the hole. (f) SEM image is the side-view of the imprint left by burned straw; (g) manually constructed EDS-based phase map of the same image, color-coded as in the previous example. (h) SEM image of leaf imprint into the clay roofing material, showing the ribbed structure of a leaf; (i) photomicrograph of the same object.