Electrochemical methods to discriminate technology and provenance of Apulian red-figured pottery. I: VIMP and SECM

Voltammetry of immobilized particles (VIMP) and scanning electrochemical miscroscopy (SECM) techniques are combined to study nanosamples from 60 Apulian red-figured pottery objects from six Apulian archaeological sites (Altamura, Arpi, Conversano, Egnazia, Monte Sannace, Taranto) and three Attic samples from Pella. The VIMP signatures corresponding to the electrocatalytic effect of microparticulate deposits of the clay body and the black gloss on the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) are obtained. These signatures provide information on the reducing/oxidizing conditions of firing. The combination of the above voltammetric data permits to distinguish between Apulian production and Attic importations as well to discriminate the productions from different archaeological sites or even within different technologies in samples from the same site.