https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-025-06168-5
Regular Article
Raman approach to investigate painted decorations and manufacture technology of fake Greek and Italic pottery: a contribution to authentication
Dipartimento Di Scienze, Università Degli Studi Roma Tre, Via Della Vasca Navale 84, 00146, Rome, Italy
Received:
15
November
2024
Accepted:
21
February
2025
Published online:
18
March
2025
Faking manufacture of ancient pottery is a phenomenon connected to the circulation and trade of unknown archaeological objects, aimed at increasing the earnings of unscrupulous sellers. In this traffic, craftsmen use pseudoscientific skills to produce modern artefact inspired to the ancient ones for fraudulent purposes, mimicking the original materials and ancient manufacturing technologies. In the authentication of decorated ancient pottery, micro-Raman spectroscopy can provide a contribution to the study of constituent materials and manufacturing processes, thanks to the possibility of obtaining data in non-destructive mode or by micrometric samples and to its high sensibility to detect mineralogical and low-crystallinity phases in the decoration. This paper is focused on the characterisation of mineralogical compounds in black glazes and in polychrome overpainted decorations of pseudo-archaeological potteries, which embody different levels of forger’s skill, corresponding to an increasing gradualness in the interpretative complexity of the data acquired. For each case study, the specific contribution of micro-Raman spectroscopy to the characterisation of the surface decorations is highlighted, thus providing important clues about the counterfeiters modus operandi and suggesting its possible use as one of the tools for a multi-analytical authentication protocol for this kind of pottery artefacts.
Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-025-06168-5.
© The Author(s) 2025
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
