Study of Syrian archaeological pottery by the combined application of thermoluminescence (TL) dating, X-ray fluorescence analysis and statistical multivariate analysis

X-ray fluorescence method and the technique of thermoluminescence (TL) dating have been utilized for the study of archaeological pottery fragment samples, fairly representative of the Romanian period between 1st century B.C. and 4th century A.D., from Judaidet Yabous site, which is located north-west of Damascus city, Syria. Four samples were chosen randomly among the 46 samples for dating using thermoluminescence technique and the results were in good agreement with the date assigned by archaeologists. The samples were irradiated for 1000 s live time twice, first using a Mo X-ray Tube and second using a ¹⁰⁹Cd radioactive source. Fifteen elements (K, Ca, Ti, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ga, Rb, Sr, Y, Zr, Nb, and Pb) were determined. The elemental concentrations have been processed using two multivariate statistical methods. The purpose of the study was to characterize by means of element contents of the pottery paste from the Judaidet Yabous archaeological site and to provide new data to the Syrian databases for future studies. From an archaeological point of view the results indicated that most of the potteries were locally produced.