An archaeometrical approach to the majolica pottery from Alcazar de Najera archaeological site

Abstract

The city of Nájera, located in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, hosts an alcazar of Arab origin, which became the residence of the king of Pamplona-Nájera and later of the duke and duchess of Nájera. From this last period (1500–1600) date the ceramics that were unearthed during the recent excavations of the Alcázar of Nájera. These findings constitute the largest post-Medieval assemblage of ceramic pieces unearthed in the city. They include a large set of plain tin–lead glazed pieces of tableware, as well as some mono or polychrome decorated sherds. In this work, an archaeometric characterization was carried out on a subsample of these ceramics (n = 94) by means of a multi-analytical strategy. The pastes were analyzed chemically and mineralogically by ICP-MS and XRD, respectively. Further evaluations on a subsample of ceramic glazes was carried out by SEM–EDS and Raman microscopy. The preliminary results enabled establishing a main large compositional group (NAJ-A) and a smaller one (NAJ-B) which could tentatively be linked to a local production origin. Moreover, exogenous provenances such as Muel and Talavera were identified after the comparison with data from other Spanish contemporary majolica pottery productions.