A portable X-ray fluorescence analyzer in use at the Field Museum
Posted on 02/11/2019 7:54:37 PM PST by SunkenCiv
About eight hundred years ago, a ship sank in the Java Sea off the coast of the islands of Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. There are no written records saying where the ship was going or where it came from -- the only clues are the mostly-disintegrated structure of the vessel and its cargo, which was discovered on the seabed in the 1980s. Since the wreck's recovery in the 1990s, researchers have been piecing together the world that the Java Sea Shipwreck was part of. In a new study in the Journal of Archaeological Science, archaeologists have demonstrated a new way to tell where the ceramic cargo of the ship originally came from: by zapping it with an X-ray gun.
The Field Museum is home to an estimated 7,500 pieces of cargo recovered from the wreck, including the 60 ceramic pieces from the shipwreck analyzed in this study: bowls and boxes made of porcelain covered in a bluish-white glaze called qingbai. Based on the style of the ceramics, scientists knew that it came from southeastern China, but style alone isn't enough to pinpoint a piece's origin because many kilns produced similar-looking pieces. By comparing the chemical makeups of ceramics from the wreck and from different kiln sites in China, the researchers were able to more precisely determine where the ceramics were made.
Ceramics from different sites have different chemical compositions because of variations in the elements present in that region's clay or in the recipes that potters used to mix their clay. If a piece of pottery from the shipwreck matches the pottery found at an archaeological site, it's a pretty safe bet that the pottery originated there.
(Excerpt) Read more at fieldmuseum.org ...
I love this stuff. Thanks for posting it.
Remarkable.
Thanks rlmorel, my pleasure.
They divided the shipwreck pottery into groups and found matches among those groups to kiln complexes in Jingdezhen, Dehua, Shimuling, Huajiashan and Minqing, near the port of Fuzhou.
In fact, their findings suggest that the ship's port of departure was Fuzhou — where most of the shipwreck's pottery originated — and it likely later sailed to Quanzhou to take on porcelain from other kiln complexes, the scientists reported.
The article says "...the shipwreck tells us that there were huge trade networks in the 12th and 13th centuries,” says Field Museum MacArthur Curator of Anthropology and study co-author Gary Feinman. “We’re taught to associate vast trade networks with Europeans like Magellan and Marco Polo, but Europeans weren’t a big part of this network that went from Asia to Africa. Globalization isn’t just a recent phenomenon—it’s not just Eurocentric, not just tied to modern capitalism. The ancient world was more interconnected than a lot of people thought.”
Mr. Feinman makes an interesting point about how we were taught about Marco Polo and the Silk Road, but not about the wider trade network run by Eastern peoples. The following map shows the trade routes that existed in the first century AD.
The network was used regularly from 130 BC, when the Han officially opened trade with the west, to 1453 AD, when the Ottoman Empire boycotted trade with the west and closed the routes. That happened to coincide with the explosion of western explorers and seafarers.
There's more information about this shipwreck at 12th-Century Shipwreck Came with Handy 'Made in China' Tag. It says the ruling dynasty of southern China was expanding sea trade routes and focused on sea trade. The wreck contained ceramics, some 200 tons of cast-iron objects, aromatic resin and elephant tusks.
Here's an interesting photo of the ceramics as found on the sea floor before restoration. Just imagine the painstaking work to restore those ceramics!
but not about the wider trade network run by Eastern peoples.
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The whole point of seeking a direct route to Asia by traveling West, was because of taxes, and tolls charge by Muslim areas, as good traveled West on the trade route.
I was taught this over 50 years ago.
Columbus originally wanted to help free Constantinople, which had recently been conquered by the Ottomans. Instead he decided to travel West with the idea of profiting from direct trade.
But they found them too distracting..
The interest in trade with the Roman Empire did indeed get fired up during the Han Dynasty, thanks to a Roman trading vessel that arrived in China and was recorded in the (luckily surviving) Han court records (there's an accurate transliteration of the correct emperor, Marcus Aurelius, AD 161 to 180). The Romans knew about the orangutan, enjoyed pepper, and imported so much nice pottery from India, some enterprising Roman brought a raft of Dravidian pottery workers over to a nice quiet spot on the Red Sea, in order to simplify the importing process. Overland trade in Asia is, of course, prehistoric, and by 2000 BC Harappan bead work, lapis lazuli from what is now Afghanistan, and obsidian mostly from Anatolia was moving great distances in trade.
Thanks texas booster.
Some people believe that the Roman abacus, which pre-dates the Chinese suan-pan, was introduced into China early in the Christian era by trading merchants.
:^).
They had one of those guns on a recent episode of Pawnstars, where they were evaluating a pre-Etruscan toga pin. It gave a readout, element by element of the percentages.
Was it the real thing?
By now, they can afford the best. :^).
Actually, the owner thought it was Roman. Turned out to be older.
Rethinking silk’s origins
Nature | 17 Feb 2009 | Philip Ball
Posted on 02/18/2009 7:03:32 AM PST by BGHater
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2188291/posts
Thanks for the ping. That’s a fascinating article.
You're welcome. When I looked for it the other day, bupkis, then I stumbled over it while looking for something else. Go figure.
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