Production Technologies and Provenance of Ceramic Materials from the Earliest Foundry of Pre-Roman Padua, NE Italy

Abstract

The earliest foundry site of Pre-Roman Padua, in the Veneto region (north-eastern Italy), provided evidence of craft activities and residential areas dated between the end of the 9th and 1st centuries BCE. Common and fine wares were found, most of them belonging to two main ceramic classes: (i) highly dark-colored bodies with silicate inclusions; (ii) carbonate-tempered pots. Macroscopic and petrographic (POM) descriptions and spectroscopy—mineralogical (XRPD) and geochemical (XRF)—analyses were carried out to define the provenance and technological choices (production recipes and firing conditions). The first ceramic class comprised diverse local/regional productions made with a common geo-resource, consisting in quartz-rich illitic clays, for which pit firing conditions generally under 850–900 °C were adopted. The purification of the starting base clays, the tempering of the clayey pastes with silica-rich grains and/or the polishing of surfaces were accomplished for fine wares. The carbonate-tempered pottery probably corresponded to an allochthonous ceramic class that might be used in the trade of specific contents. As such pots were made out of different illitic clays and under different redox conditions, they might correspond to diverse productions. The adoption of precise choices in very specific wares, not belonging to any of these two main ceramic classes, suggests the trade of fine wares in the Veneto during the First Iron Age.