Firing temperature determination of some18th century Transylvanian stove tiles using spectroscopic techniques

Abstract Three Transylvanian fragments of some 18th century Saxon tiles obtained from excavations in the Central Railway Station Square in Sibiu (Romania) have been studied by Raman microscopy, FTIR, SEM-EDX and XRF techniques. A lead-rich aluminosilicate was found to have been used as enamel/glaze for the tile fragments. An analysis of the band components of the Raman spectra of the enamel of one fragment in the 400−1200 cm−1 spectral region indicates that their processing temperature was in the 600−800 °C range, in good agreement with the temperature obtained from FTIR spectra of the other two tile fragments.