Title:
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The exploration of strontium isotopic analysis applied to Chinese glazes : taking southern high fired glazes as examples
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By the time this thesis is finished, I will have engaged in ancient Chinese ceramic
studies for six years. I would not call six years a long time, but the six years (from 24
years old to 30 years old) are probably the best years of a person's life. Now when I
look back over the six years and I am really glad I spent them this way. Because six
years ago I was just a young man with some obscure interest about ancient Chinese
ceramics, but now I am certain that doing research about ancient Chinese ceramic is
going to be the career for the rest of my life.
When I finish my masters course four years ago, this idea was still not so clear in my
mind. I did decent research work in my masters project, but that work did not
convince me that what I did could really help to further the understanding of ancient
Chinese ceramic technology. Because there is always this doubt about scientific
analysis of ancient ceramics in China: can it be as helpful as archaeological
excavation and historical records in terms of providing information aboutthe details
of ancient ceramic making technology?
I had this doubt when I came to Nottingham. Professor Henderson introduced me to
Sr isotopic analysis he had been engaging in to investigate ancient glasses. After a
short period of familiarization of this method and its capability, I found it could be a
very interesting method to use for my PhD project and more importantly it could
solve the issue has haunted me since I was working on my masters project: how to
identify the flux in ancient glaze recipes by scientific analysis. I always think that
identifying or suggesting the recipe for ancient ceramic production is one of the
major research objectives for the scientific study of ancient ceramics, especially
when there is not much relevant information you can pick up from archaeological
excavation and historical records, and this research objective is even more important
than determining the provenance, which is always taken as the ultimate aim for
scientific study of ancient ceramics. I made an attempt to suggest of the glaze recipe
of Zhangzhou export blue-and-white in my masters project by the conventional
method of combined contents of Phosphorus oxide (P 20 S) and Magnesium oxide
(MgO). But that attempt did not turn out very well, because I did not think my EDXRF
results for P20 S was good enough and I did not think the P20 S results from a lot of
other studies were good enough. If the final result had been based on the
comparison of those invalid data, it would have been inaccurate or even misleading.
With the helps from Professor Henderson and Professor Evans I got the chance to
apply Sr isotopic analysis to Chinese high fired glaze. By studying the Sr isotopic
compositions of the glazes and the raw materials, a new method of identifying the
flux raw material in ancient Chinese high fired glaze has been developed. Although
this is not the only success of this thesis, I am exceptionally happy with it. Because
not only does it help me get rid of the issue haunting me for a long time, but also
makes me convinced that scientific analysis of ancient ceramics can really bring up
some new information that we cannot obtain from other resources.
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