Ceramics of Bolgar: the First Results of Usage of Neutron Activation Analysis

The article is devoted to the first attempt to use neutron activation analysis (NAA) to determine the chemical composition of the clay component of the molding mass of archaeological ceramics to identify marker elements characteristic of various medieval ceramic production centers. 15 fragments of medieval vessels from the city of Bolgar, the capital of Volga Bulgaria (now the territory of Tatarstan) were provided for research by the Institute of Archeology of RAS. NAA was carried out by the NAA group of the IREN research facility at the Frank Laboratory of Neutron Physics, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Research has shown that all the studied ceramic samples had no significant differences either in the main components or in the traces. Also results were obtained, previously unknown to researchers of medieval ceramics.