Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: A pipe with red coating on the surface was excavated from an archaeological site in Sweden, which is supposed to be a lacquer ware imported from China, since during the period of 16th to 18th centuries, lacquer wares from Asia were admired and pursued by Europeans due to their beauty. However, materials such as shellac and resins were often used to imitate Chinese lacquer during that time in Europe. In order to identify whether the pipe was Chinese lacquer ware or not, scientific analyses were carried out. For characterization of the organic materials in the pipe, samples from the lacquer layer of the pipe were initially analyzed by ATR-FTIR, indicating the presence of shellac. Then reference materials of shellac and dewaxed shellac were analyzed by thermally-assisted hydrolysis and methylation pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (THM-Py-GC/MS). The criterion to identify and differentiate shellac and dewaxed shellac were obtained. The same THM-Py-GC/MS procedure was subsequently applied for the characterization of the lacquer layer of the pipe. The detection of the diagnostic peaks of shellac including aleuritic acid, laccijalaric acid, laccishellolic acid, shellolic acid and jalaric acid represents that shellac is the main material used for the coating of the pipe rather than urushiol. In addition, butolic acid and 1-octacosanol were found in the sample, which indicate that the shellac is un-dewaxed. Furthermore, marker compounds of pine resin-methyl dehydroabietate, 7-oxo-dehydroabietic acid and 15-methoxy hydroxy dehydroabietic acid and compounds from Venice turpentine-epimanool and larixol were also determined in the sample. It can be concluded that the coating of the pipe was mainly made of shellac with pine resin and Venice turpentine rather than oriental lacquer. Furthermore, the pigments in the coating could be determined by SEM-EDS and Raman spectroscopy. The identification of the coating materials of the pipe could provide important evidence of the origin of the object.
Source: Heritage Science
Authors: Yazhen Huang, Yingchun Fu, Dawa Shen, Karin Lindahl, Shuya Wei
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology (arts and humanities)
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,890
Award: G1757837836
OpenAlex ID: W4396686149