A Physicochemical Examination of Blue Shades in Pottery: Rich, Deep and Endless
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The submitted work by A.P. Panagopoulou et al about the physicochemical examination of pottery of blue shades aims to illuminate through the use of several analytical techniques the recipes of blue on glaze pottery technology.
The selected research topic is considered important due to the lack of literature on recipes for blue glazed pottery. Therefore, well-documented studies that investigate the recipes for blue glazes on pottery are important and could enhance our knowledge and understanding in this field.
Nevertheless, the manuscript should be revised as there are some issues unclear.
My comments are:
The abstract and the introduction are well written and informative. Beside the authors mention a time span from 16th to 19th century in my point of view is a bit unclear the exact age of each sample. I suggest the addition of a column in table 1 with the archaeological estimated age.
In materials & methods the authors mention the investigation with SEM-EDS instrument. It is suggested to correct the “working voltage” to accelerating and more over to give -if available- information about nA, beam diameter and take-off angle. Furthermore, it is suggested to mention the type of the detector, the detection limits and accuracy, the dead time (not only the live duration) and the type of the software and the correction method (ZAF?). In the paragraph for Raman analyses it is suggested to mention the wavelength of green beam (532nm?) and -if available- the resolution.
Section 3 “Results”. This section is well written and informative. In figures 4 and 5 it is suggested to add an information about the hue of this pigment/recipe as the composition seems to affect this attribute.
Section 4 “Discussion” and section 5 “Conclusion”. These sections are well written and informative. No further comments.
Finally, it is recommended that the authors carefully proofread the manuscript for typos and missing spaces between words, such as "West. Its," "using Scanning," "DeltaNuRockHound," "Fe2O3 in," "Fe2O3 and SnO," "TiO2 and without K2O," and other similar instances.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
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Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
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