Tomography imaging of South African archaeological and heritage stone and pottery objects

Abstract

We demonstrate the use of both neutron- and X-ray imaging in two projects. The first project, using both the methods to view the temper in a ceramic sherd in order to model the effect the chemical composition of the temper has on the bulk chemical composition of the sherd showed that X-ray imaging is superior to neutron imaging for a ceramic. The second project, to establish whether apparent incised lines on stone slabs (dated to greater than 180,000 years ago) are natural or artificial, i.e., whether they were deliberately incised or natural, random striations showed conclusively that the incisions are in fact surface manifestations of natural internal fractures in the rock.