Laboratory production of Egyptian faiences and their characterization

This article reports work on the reproduction and characterization of ancient Egyptian faiences by efflorescence and cementation methods. Previously, a series of reported investigations have clarified the chemical composition of these very particular artefacts but until now no attempts at reproduction have been carried out in order to fully understand the production processes and the difficulties involved. Investigations performed on sintered quartz biscuits and glazed layers by using Optical Microscopy (OM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis showed that certain defects observed in the ancient finds represent intrinsic properties of faiences due to preparation methods. Moreover, efflorescence methods can be applied only in very arid climatic conditions.