The Compositional study of ceramic samples from tombs dating to the Zhou Dynasty at Xiaoshan, Zhejiang Province (China)

Abstract

Xiaoshan in Zhejiang Province was an important ceramic production area in ancient China. During recent years, local archaeologists have found a number of mound tombs dating to the Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn period. Many shards of stamped stoneware and proto-porcelain have been unearthed from these tombs. In this paper, we report how we collected ceramic shards from tombs and samples from local ancient kilns as reference materials in order to clarify their relationship. We have used the energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence technique to analyse the chemical composition of the ceramic samples. The results indicate that some of the tomb artefacts may be imported from other production areas. We infer that the other tomb samples were produced at local kilns, but due to production process-related compositional differences, there are small differences in chemical composition between different categories of samples.