Aztec and Colonial Archeological Potteries: A Study on Fired Techniques

Mexican pottery, used during the Prehispanic period, showed different improvements in its manufacturing for some centuries before the arrival of Spaniards in Mexico. After this, new fired techniques were used to make ceramics during the Colonial period. Their composition, manufacturing, and fired process have not been fully understood. Photoacoustic spectroscopy (PAS), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), X-ray, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Mossbaüer spectroscopy studies of authentic archeological potteries of Aztec III (1450–1525), Aztec IV (1525–1550), and colonial Poblana (1780–1800) provide an understanding of different advances in their fired manufacturing. For the case of colonial Poblana pottery, some colors associated with metallic oxides, which were introduced in the Mexican colonial period, were found. The composition of the analyzed samples was mainly SiO₂, with Al, Ca, Na, Fe, S, Mg, Pb, K, Ti, and Cu impurities. Through the use of the techniques mentioned above, it was possible to determine the different processes of fired techniques associated with each type of pottery. These results were compared with archeological registers about the composition and technology in the pottery manufacturing processes.Paper presented at the Seventeenth European Conference on Thermophysical Properties, September 5–8, 2005, Bratislava, Slovak Republic.