Exploring the possibilities of geochemical analyses on painted pottery of pre-Islamic Iran

The aim of this paper is to present the preliminary results of a geochemical analysis on pre-Islamic painted pottery. An archaeometrical study is undertaken on pre-Islamic painted pottery from excavations and surveys conducted by the late prof. dr. L. Vanden Berghe (Ghent University) during the 1950’s. These ceramics provide a sample of Iranian pre-islamic painted pottery that is representative over time and space. The applied analytical method is portable X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF), a non-destructive technique to study the elemental composition of ceramics. The results of these geochemical analyses reveal distinct regional and chronological differences, allowing a renewed classification of the studied ceramic. In turn, this work provides a future reference framework for the identification of pre-Islamic pottery. Moreover, the acquired data will be used to shed light on the development of pottery technology and on questions concerning production centres and the origin of primary materials. In this paper, the process of acquiring and interpreting this data will be outlined and the importance of such an interdisciplinary approach to improve the current understanding of regional cultures in pre-Islamic Iran will be illustrated