Spectroscopic and porosimetry studies to estimate the firing temperature of some archaeological pottery shreds from India

Abstract The present study aims to estimate the firing temperature of archaeological pottery shreds collected from the three archaeological sites namely Maligaimedu, Thiruverkadu and Palur in Tamilnadu state, India. The spectroscopic method Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) has been employed to find the lower limit of firing temperature of the archaeological pottery shreds by refiring the samples to four different temperatures from 200 °C to 800 °C. From the observation of the hydroxyl band and appearance/disappearance of octahedral sheet structure the firing temperature of the shreds has been estimated. The samples from Maligaimedu site named as MM1, MM3 and MM5, Thiruverkadu and Palur samples were fired to a temperature above 800 °C and the samples of Maligaimedu MM2, MM4 and MM6 were fired below 800 °C. Additionally, porosimetry measurements such as water absorption and mercury intrusion (MIP) were also carried out. The samples MM1, MM3, TK2–TK6, PL3 and PL5 were fired to a temperature less than 900 °C and the other samples to less than 1000 °C.