Archaeometric Study of Two Tanagra Type Statuettes of Unknown Provenance to Support Forensic Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Title: Minero-petrographic study…TL should be spelled out.

‘Archaeometric study’ in the title would be more informative and inclusive of all techniques described in the paper.  

 The paper is describing various methods of analysis of two clay figures aiming to authenticate them and establish their dating. Even though TL thermoluminescence is included in the title it is not the primary modes of analysis.

The contents of sections do not follow what sections’ titles indicate.  For example, in Materials and Methods, the discussion is not on materials but on the style and iconography.  It is an interesting and valuable description and should be placed in a separate section as background, or stylistic analysis. There is very little about materials or samples descriptions in the section Materials and Methods. The same applies to other sections, they do not contain what their titles indicate. The section Methods contains discussion rather than the actual description of methods.

The Analytical Methods section which is the core of this paper needs to clearly indicate what methods were used, how they were used, and why.

This case study is interesting, but the text needs a major reorganization and clarification of terms and analytical techniques used. Some statements and expressions are not clear. Only the most glaring are listed in Line Comments.

Line comments:

Abstract:

17 …confiscated…rather than ‘provided’  would set the stage of how the statues were obtained.

25  ..archaeological manufacturing.. what is meant by that? Maybe …historical techniques of manufacturing…?

23-28 The sentence is too long, split into 2 or 3 sentences.

Intro:

58 what is meant by 1) to favour investigations?  Is the meaning pointing out to ‘support investigations’?   needs clarification.

Materials and Methods:

107 2.1 In this section the focus should be on materials, but the entire section is focused on the structure, style, and iconography. A separate section is suggested altogether, it does not fit under Materials and Methods.  There is very little in this section that talks about materials used in making the statues.

2.2 Analytical methods:

168 …observations ..are made not performed. The analytical measurements were carried out, rather than ‘observed’.

178  How large were the ‘chipped off’ samples? A unit of weight or measurements would be helpful to add.

180-83… what this analysis is really aiming for, and what units are referred to as ‘gray in SI’?

A large portion in this section belongs to ‘discussion’ rather than ‘analytical methods’.

228 What is meant by ‘collection’ of samples?

Results:

A large part of that section belongs to ‘materials’, rather than ‘results’.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for his/her comments.

All comments/suggestions have been evaluated and changes have been made to the paper accordingly.

Reviewer 2 Report

I enjoyed reading the paper and I think it is of sufficient quality and interest to the readership. I cannot see a new approach or a new insight to the field as the way of characterisation and this type of artificial objects have been used/discussed already in the literature. So, I cannot see any novelty in this work, However, I think this work shows the importance of conducting thorough analysis and that only by looking at all the results together, a good conclusion can be made. I suggest publication after major revision as I think the X-ray data needs to be collected again. See below for details.

X-ray Diffraction: “Scans were collected in the range of 3-60° 2θ min¯¹ scan rate and a 2 s time constant.” There is some important information missing, I suggest to include. The range cannot be given in 2θ/min, it is simply only ° 2θ. Then, dependent on which detector was used (authors need to specify this), there is a scan with for each exposure if a CCD or silicon strip detector was used, plus a step size (how many degrees theta was moved for each exposure) and exposure time (here 2s). Also, which geometry was used? Was data collected on the fragments as whole or were they ground into powder. Was the data collected in reflection or transmission geometry, on a flat plate or in a capillary? The results can differ a lot dependent on which method/geometry or setting was used. Finally, XRD does not produce spectra (no energy dependent scale) but patterns, this should be amended for clarity.

I am aware that the quality of patterns cannot be great looking at the type of samples used, however, the intensity of the pattern is very low. I strongly suggest, if samples are still in hand, to record X-ray patterns either using Mo-radiation or with longer exposure times (I’d reckon >30s) using Cu-radiation. The radiation damage is minor looking at the type of minerals present in the sample. Also, as these are not spectra, at least 3-5 reflections of each mineral should be visible in the pattern in order to qualitatively identify their presence.

Some minor corrections:

P1, Line 39: Remove “By the way”

P2, Line 81: “The aspect”, don’t understand what this means in the context of the sentence

P2, Line 87: Remove “by”

P2, Line 96: Don’t understand: “the world which rests on the body”, please rephrase

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for his/her comments.

All comments/suggestions have been evaluated and changes have been made to the paper accordingly.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

I think the paper is well-designed, either from a conceptual point of view or to the methodology. Besides, the discussion is well done according to the techniques used, and the conclusions are clear, synthesise the key points and present a solution for the research problem. Nevertheless, the amount of work seems too short for a publication in Heritage journal.

additional points

- references should be presented to support the theoretical discussion on TL (lines 184 - 207) and also for the TL tests (lines 291 – 297)

- Figure 4 – XRD pattern for ST_R: the caption for micas and clay minerals are missing. Besides, a more complete identification of both diffraction patterns should be made.

I suggest including a detailed description from the stylistic point of view of the statues, their degradation pattern and characterisation of the white-grey patina, besides a more significant number of statues to have a broader universe of samples.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for his/her comments.

All comments/suggestions have been evaluated and changes have been made to the paper accordingly.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The additions and clarifications improved the paper. There are still areas and terms that need to be rewritten and explained. Lines 106-110- suggest a two-component object. The study is of 2 objects and not a 2-part object.  'Coroplast', 'vugas' (262), and 'clayey' (332) need to be introduced and explained.  According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary 'coroplast' is a "modeler of wax or terracotta figures"; 'vugas' is defined as "a cavity in rock lined with minerals"; what is 'clayey'? Clearly, the above terms have different meanings in this context, therefore, needs to be explained why they are used and what they mean.  Consolidating the 'results' and more concisely explaining what the findings mean would be helpful. The observed details are not necessarily sufficient to appreciate what they mean for the overall study.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for this further review. His/her suggestions were taken into consideration, helping to improve the quality of the paper.

Comments are in the attached file

Kind Regards

MFLR

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

I feel that the paper has improved a lot with the revision process. It is better structured, and the objects are presented more effectively. TL study is also better supported by the literature.

The caption for Fig 4 should be corrected: instead of XRD spectra, it should be XRD patterns.

Besides, I understand the point stated by the authors when they say, “Also, concerning the second point, our choice deemed most appropriate was that of indicating only the (100) peak of the minerals identified, because they were considered sufficient; other diagnostic peaks are also present”, but I disagree that adequate identification of a compound/mineral can be made based only in the (100) reflection. At least 3 reflections should be identified to confirm a compound's presence consistently. That is why I still think that the interpretation of XRD patterns should be more complete.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for this further review. His/her suggestions were taken into consideration, helping to improve the quality of the paper.

Comments are in the attached file

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf