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Portable Near Infrared Micro-Raman (NIR μ-Raman) spectroscopy was used, as a preliminary and non-destructive technique, in order to investigate the mineralogical composition of a group of pottery sherds from Khirbat Iskandar, Jordan. Preliminary results show that the ceramic body is composed mainly of quartz, calcite, and minor amounts of feldspars and hematite. In addition, the presence of Olivine and anatase, important markers to identify the provenance of raw materials, was detected. Furthermore, the occurrence of Portlandite was related to both rehydration of calcite and burial alteration processes. Finally, a study of Raman spectrum of Amorphous Carbon, identified as temper in the clay, was performed to estimate the manufacturing parameters (maximum temperature and permanence time).

Pottery samples from the Pompeii archaeological site were investigated by IR Raman spectroscopy and EDAX measurements. The analysis of the Raman spectra of the surfaces reveals the presence calcium hydroxide (peak at about 780 cm−1) while the calcium carbonate is totally absent. The comparative studies on the carbonation effect of the surfaces were performed on laboratory grown samples of calcium hydroxide. The samples were treated at high temperature and exposed to different ambient conditions, and the analysis suggests that the original surfaces of Roman pottery were scattered by calcium hydroxide (limewash) before the cooking process in the furnace. The result of this surface treatment not only permits a vitrification of the surfaces but also seems to reduce the content of CO2in the furnace atmosphere and then obtain a more oxidant ambient during the cooking of the pottery. These results give new insights on the real degree of knowledge of the Romans about the art of ceramics and more generally about chemistry and technologies.

The study of cultural heritage can take advantage of modern non-destructive analysis technique able to identify, among the others, the composition of the investigated ancient artifacts. In the present paper we applied Raman spectroscopy to analyze selected Mesopotamian materials from Kish kept in the Ashmolean Museum of the University of Oxford to investigate the pottery technique of that ancient people, with particular reference to the painting procedure. Beside the use of hematite and gypsum as red and white pigments respectively, the use of a near infrared laser excitation allowed to detect the presence of specific compounds applied at the pottery surface. Residual traces of the used oil were detected thanks to the fingerprint vibration at 1870 cm − 1 which is ascribed to the C C stretching of the cyclopropenoid compound of some fatty acids and, in particular, assignable to the use of oils derived by sterculiaceae and malvaceae plants. By using DFT calculations we simulated the degradation process of the hypothesized initial oil and we propose the attribution of the final compound revealed by Raman analysis. From the reported experimental results we propose that the oil was applied all over the surface of the pottery as a primer before the painting decoration with the use of the dry oil technique.

Orientation studies have recently received considerable attention in the archaeological domain as a source of information that may shed light on a number of anthropologi- cal issues, such as belief systems or landscape and territory understanding by past cultures. This is especially important in those cultural contexts, such as the megalithic phenomena, where there are no written sources. Megalithic monument orientations can in many instances be explained only within an astronomical context, as has been shown by extensive archaeoastronomical fieldwork surveys and by statistical approaches to the problem., This work has been partially financed within the framework of the projects P/309307 Arqueoastronomía of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, and Orientatio ad sidera III (AYA2011-26759) of the Spanish MINECO. ACGG is Ramón y Cajal researcher of MINECO. AP would like to acknowledge the support of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan.