Ancient Ceramics

 Many methods can be used to analyze the composition of ancient ceramics, such as neutron activation, atomic absorption spectrometry, X-ray fluorescence, and others. However, the neutron activation method and atomic absorption spectrometry offer high sensitivity and accuracy, and both require the samples to be powdered before testing and analysis. This process is particularly damaging for ancient ceramics, especially for complete artifacts, and therefore cannot be used for the scientific and technological characterization of intact works. Energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis (EDXRF), on the other hand, can be performed directly without sampling and is widely used in ancient ceramic provenance studies, dating research, and authenticity verification.