THE EXPLORATION OF SR ISOTOPIC ANALYSIS APPLIED TO CHINESE GLAZES: PART TWO* H. MA† Institute for Cultural Heritage and History of Science & Technology, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, P.R. China J. HENDERSON Department of Archaeology, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK and J. EVANS NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 5GG, UK To continue the enquiry into strontium isotope compositions in southern Chinese glazes, this study determines the strontium isotope compositions of porcelain glazes of Dehua ‘Blanc De Chine’ porcelain and blue-and-white porcelain, and Tai Po blue-and-white porcelain. Mixing lines are displayed in the strontium isotope compositions of the Dehua glazes, suggesting that raw materials of different natures were used to make the two glazes. By referring to the historical resources, a high-calcium plant ash and a mixture of limestone and high-silica ash can be suggested as the fluxes used in the recipes for ‘Blanc De Chine’ glaze and blue-and-white glaze respectively. The strontium isotope compositions of Tai Po blue-and-white porcelain glazes separate into two groups, suggesting that different recipes were used to make the same glaze. The group A includes too few samples to allow an identification of the raw materials used, while the strontium isotope compositions of group B samples suggest that a high-calcium plant ash was added as the flux. KEYWORDS: CHINESE GLAZE, STRONTIUM ISOTOPES, RAW MATERIALS INTRODUCTION Identification of the recipe used to make ancient ceramics is an important issue in their study. Glaze-making is an intrinsic part of ceramic technology, and the choice of the fluxes was often the major difference between the glaze-making technologies carried out at different ancient ceramic production sites. Ancient southern Chinese high-fired glazes almost exclusively had CaO as the major fluxing oxide. Two different sources of lime (CaO), burnt limestone and plant ash, are most commonly suggested as the fluxes used in the recipes. Except for a few types of glazes—such as Jingdezhen limestone glaze, the recipe for which was recorded in multiple historical sources and passed down as a hand-made ceramic craft—the recipes for most ancient glaze types are only suggested by referring to their chemical compositions. However, it has been found that the chemical composition of the glaze is not always a good indicator of the choice of flux in the recipe. Oxides such as P 2 O 5 and MnO are often looked at to provide a distinction between plant ash and limestone. But they are not always consistently diagnostic, because of *Received 20 March 2015; accepted 17 October 2015 †Corresponding author: email mahongjiao@ustb.edu.cn Archaeometry ••, •• (2016) ••–•• doi: 10.1111/arcm.12224 © 2016 University of Oxford