Estimating the equivalent firing temperature of ancient baked clay artifacts through magnetic measurements.

Magnetic measurements are usually applied in archeology for dating purposes through archaeomagnetic applications, but they can also be used to study ceramics technology, from the production stage through distribution and use. Actually, the study of the firing temperatures achieved in ancient baked clay structures can offer important insights to the establishment of the ancient technology used in a certain region or historical period, contributing to the archaeological research of technology developments in both space and time. In this work, we investigated the changes observed on the magnetic properties of baked clay samples collected from one furnace and two burnt funeral walls, in order to identify the equivalent firing temperature occurred in these structures. Such investigations are based on the onset change of the initial magnetic properties observed after subsequent thermal treatments of the studied materials.