Traces of Indigenous Buff Pottery Industry of Shahr-I Sokhta; Using Semi-Quantitative Analysis of Elements XRF

A study analyzing pottery shards from Shahr-i Sokhta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in southeastern Iran, reveals that most of the buff-colored pottery found there is locally made. Using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), researchers examined 15 pottery samples dating back to 2800–2200 BC. The findings indicate that while a significant portion of the pottery belongs to a local production group, five specific samples (18259-9, 18265-10, 18266-13, 18273-4, and 18271-15) are not indigenous, suggesting they were imported. Additionally, red and grey pottery shards, which are less common, appear to have originated from elsewhere, challenging the assumption that all pottery at this site was locally produced.

Sarhadi Dadiyan, H., Pourzarghan, V., Moradi, H., Razani, M.,. (2015). Traces of Indigenous Buff Pottery Industry of Shahr-I Sokhta; Using Semi-Quantitative Analysis of Elements XRF. Journal of Research on Archaeometry, 1(1), 47–54. https://doi.org/10.29252/jra.1.1.47