A Study on the Colored Glazed Tiles of Soltaniyeh Dome: an Analytical Approach

The destructive tests are limited for investigate the ancient buildings and non-destructive tests or statistical approaches are preferred instead. In this research, the chemical composition of Soltaniyeh Dome tiles was investigated with a statistical approach. Characterization of colored glazed tiles belonging to historical collection of SD was performed using portable XRF, followed by comparison of samples using PCA/Euclidean distance analysis was made. Decorated motifs which were investigated in this study were blue, green, yellow, white and black colors. According to the classification performed by principal component analysis, three groups of glaze composition, consist of bright colors (Group 1), dark colors (Group 2) and sky blue color (Group 3) was recorded. The results indicated the main differences in the chemical composition of samples while having similarities in the existing colors. The reason was related to the different sources of raw materials which has been provided in periods of time. A similarities were observed between the color composition of pottery glazed tiles and the color composition reported on gypsum surfaces by previous researchers.