Publications Repository - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

Finishing techniques are significant markers of the technological “knowhow” involved in the production of the clay-based traditional ceramic ware.
In order to provide a reliable tool to discriminate among two main surface processing techniques, i.e. smoothing and burnishing, vertical scanning interferometry (VSI) – a recently developed non-destructive technique for analyzing the surface roughness and topography, is applied. The smoothed areas have an obvious roughness expressed by linear structures. The latter are made of parallel ridges and trenches with an average depth of 15–20 μm. Burnishing leads to a lower topography and a lower roughness compared to the smoothed surface section. The VSI quantifies the spatial distribution of the surface building blocks, which consist of phyllosilicate aggregates of variable size. The statistical treatment of the roughness data obtained by VSI shows that the surface topography provides significant information on the pottery processing and a clear qualitative and quantitative discrimination between different surfaces. VSI supports the reconstitution of the chaȋne opératoire for traditional ceramic pottery and the recognition of the surface finishing techniques.