Analysis of Turquoise Glazed Ceramics from

Western Asia
were founded in Thailand by SEM-EDS

Introduction

Many archaeological sites in Malay Peninsular,

h
particularly ancient port sites dating to between 7t and
th
10 Centuries A.D. revealed many foreign trade goods.

One of it is ceramics which present in large quantities in

both excavation and survey. Ceramics of the earliest

period were transported on merchant ships not with any

intention to sell them but because they were containers

for consumer goods such as food stuff, spices, medicine

or alcohol. (Amara 1996) They entered Malay Peninsular

th
as trade goods dating to the 8 Century A.D.

The major imported ceramics are Chinese wares, as

the excavation at Muang Thong, Laem Pho and Bujang,

The archaeological sites in Malay Peninsular, have

yielded trace of varieties of Chinese and Western Asia

wares. The studying Chinese wares in Southeast Asia

have more numerous but still rare in Western Asia

wares. In this research, we have focused on Western Asia

ware, particularly blue-green (Turquoise) glazed in

Sassanian Islamic period.

Innovation of blue-green glazed ware

Ancient glazes can be classified in to three main

groups on the basis of their chemical composition: alkali

glazes, composed primarily of alkali oxides (10-18% Na2O,

3-5% K2O) and silica, lead-alkali glazes, containing 20-40%

PbO and 5-12 % alkali oxides and high lead glazes with an

alkali oxide content less than 2% and 45-60 PbO. (Pace et

al. 2008).

Blue-green or turquoise glazed ceramic represents

the earliest and longest-lasting tradition of glazing in the

Middle East, stretching back beyond the Islamic period

to the Sassanian, Parthian and eventually to the Bronze

Age (Watson 2005). Actually, The Eqyptians were the first

group who used a true glassy glaze composed of

powdered sand, quartz or crystal, with an alkaline flux

such as potash or soda as early as the fourth millennium

B.C. This alkaline glaze could be stained many colours

by the addition of metallic oxide, (Lane 1965) most

commonly copper which provide a blue to blue-green

colour. Later, from at least the sixteenth century BC,

blue glazes were applied to ordinary clay bodies in

Northern Mesopotamia and Syria