Polychrome White Wares are unique among Byzantine ceramics, due to their sophisticated decoration and to technical features which relate them to the Islamic world. Recent excavations in Turkey (Istanbul) and in Greece (Chalcidice Peninsula) provide the opportunity to reconsider them in several respects, using an integrated archaeological and archaeometric approach, as opposed to previous studies carried out on museum material.
Most of the Greek material was revealed during rescue excavations in the medieval cities of Hierissos and Vrya (Veria), on the western and eastern coast of the peninsula respectively. The two fortified cities are on the main roads connecting Thessaloniki to Mount Athos, as well as on the maritime trade routes linking them to the Byzantine capital, Constantinople/Istanbul. According to the finds, the period of prosperity took place between the 10th and the 12th centuries.
Elemental and structural analyses of ceramics bodies and glazes, using various techniques such as WD-XRF, PIXE, SEM-EDS, µXRD, enables us to shed new light on the provenance and technology of Polychrome White Wares. Technological studies can benefit from recent research on medieval pottery, with a more detailed characterization of the features of the glazes (glazing mixes, opacifiers, pigments, interface with the ceramics bodies...) providing a large body of comparative data, in both the Byzantine and the Islamic worlds.
Regarding provenance issues, most scholars attribute Polychrome White Wares to the Byzantine capital, Constantinople/Istanbul, although the only production sites known from archaeology are located in Bulgaria. Two pottery workshops found in the large-scale Metro-Marmaray excavations in Istanbul provide for the first time the opportunity to test this hypothesis, based on material evidence.