---
slug: the-black-that-was-never-paint
passed: 2026-10-14
by: the assay line (research/assay-line/cited-1014b/), Codex fixer directed by claude-assaying-boyle-1014; source record by Codex, checked by Codex
checked: 153
confirmed: 117
wrong: 33
unverifiable: 0
observed: 0
stale: 3
---

This was the directed repair pass for the 36 items in research/assay-line/cited-1014b/the-black-that-was-never-paint/triage.json against f5e5f84f34, after the fixer re-read each item's evidence. The 117 CONFIRMED claim lines below are carried forward from the Codex checker's source reread in N2-codex.md, with its source-specific qualifications; they are not presented as a second independent full audit. MINOR is counted in wrong: 16 WRONG plus 17 MINOR, including the one shared-placard item left unchanged as directed. Three STALE items are dated, with the JSON-LD metadata exception recorded separately. The generated numerical data were rebuilt from this layer's source, and the page's authored prose and model descriptions were corrected directly.

## Claims

- WRONG | one free time constant | git show f5e5f84f34:public/strata/the-black-that-was-never-paint/index.html | X1 (p07-03): Re-read the inline constants K_SINTER, K_REDOX and K_SEALED at f5e5f84f34. They independently set 20 minutes and 45 seconds at 900 C and 90 minutes at 830 C. The page, model comment and README now distinguish the chosen scales and activation energies from the tuned sealed pathway.
- MINOR | The gap between gloss and body is fixed by Herring's sintering law | git show f5e5f84f34:public/strata/the-black-that-was-never-paint/index.html | X2 (p07-05): Re-read SIZE_RATIO = 10, HERRING_N = 3 and BODY_SLOWDOWN. Herring supplies conditional scaling, not those two inputs. Both explanations, the model comment and README now name the assumed tenfold ratio and lattice-diffusion exponent.
- MINOR | 6.13 orders of magnitude | git show f5e5f84f34:research/attic-black-gloss/compute.mjs; git show f5e5f84f34:public/strata/the-black-that-was-never-paint/index.html | X3 (p09-05): Recomputed Math.log10(0.209476) - log10pO2(HM,1173.15) as 6.1350425312544195. compute.mjs now retains this unrounded result; the page and dek display 6.14. Generated page.json and aw-data were rebuilt; the verifier now requires full precision and its corruption control uses an altered value.
- MINOR | 2,600 to 2,800 kg/m³ | https://webmineral.com/data/Illite.shtml; https://www.handbookofmineralogy.org/pdfs/kaolinite.pdf | X4 (p21-03): Re-read Webmineral's illite density 2.6 to 2.9 g/cm3 and the Handbook of Mineralogy's measured kaolinite density 2.61 to 2.68. The tested 2600 to 2800 kg/m3 interval is now a chosen sensitivity band; its arithmetic is unchanged.
- WRONG | One reconstruction settled for six months | https://exarc.net/issue-2023-3/ea/experimenting-ancient-greek-pottery-production-process | X5 (p23-03): Fetched and read EXARC Stages 3 and 4. Six months concerns drying kiln-floor sections; the slip rests 72 hours before siphoning and concentration. Using that duration and the unchanged assumed 50, 100 and 200 mm depths yields 0.4633538389968802, 0.6552812832870275 and 0.9267076779937604 micrometres. The displayed 0.463 to 0.927 band overlaps Cianchetta's 0.879 to 1.76 band. Source record, input, generated data, prose and false verifier comparisons were corrected.
- WRONG | Clay in plain water flocculates | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | X6 (p24-04): Re-read Solard 2023, Previous studies of Attic gloss technology. Suitable illitic clays can spontaneously disperse in water without a dispersing agent. The page now makes flocculation conditional on clay and water chemistry and distinguishes dispersion from adding an agent.
- WRONG | whether the Athenians used a dispersing agent decides whether their tub was a sieve at all | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | X7 (p24-05): Re-read Solard 2023, Previous studies of Attic gloss technology. Suitable illitic clays can spontaneously disperse in water without a dispersing agent. The page now makes flocculation conditional on clay and water chemistry and distinguishes dispersion from adding an agent.
- WRONG | Conway Herring | https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1063/1.1699658 | X8 (p26-01): Fetched Crossref's DOI 10.1063/1.1699658 record, whose author is Conyers Herring. The running attribution has been corrected from Conway.
- MINOR | A gloss too rich in lime does not merely come out wrong, it flakes. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | X9 (p29-04): Re-read Solard 2023's discussion of sample IA10. Its flaking is likely associated with high CaO, while post-depositional changes remain a possible explanation for the chemistry. The page now retains both qualifications.
- STALE | That article carries no bibliography, no references and no citations of any kind. | git show f5e5f84f34:memory/log.d/2026-08-15T0200Z-the-black-that-was-never-paint.md; https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/ | X10 (whe-no-bibliography): Re-read the pinned 2026-08-15 author log and the current WHE Bibliography. The log records a fetch with no references; the current page lists a British Museum source, accessed 1 Dec 2016. That access date does not date when the entry became visible. The body, bibliography, dek, source record and README now distinguish these observations.
- MINOR | 163 to 361 ppm | https://elearning.uniroma1.it/mod/resource/view.php?id=305286 | X11 (p39-04): Downloaded and read Walton 2015, Results, zinc paragraph: the body-clay cluster spans 163 to 361 ppm with one outlier at 535 ppm. The page and source record retain the cluster and add the outlier; the verifier checks both.
- WRONG | Raman spectroscopy cannot detect hercynite in ceramics at all | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjp/s13360-025-06168-5 | X12 (p40-03): Re-read Privitera, Sardara and Sodo 2025, results for samples C and D beside Fig. 4: a hercynite Raman band is identified near 730 to 740 cm^-1, with difficulty in mixtures acknowledged. Publication was 18 March 2025, before this layer. The universal inability claim is replaced by the attributed 2015 limitation and the subsequent detection, also in the README.
- MINOR | Nobody appears to have published a systematic multi-technique cross-validation on a single sherd set. | https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934 | X13 (p40-05): Read Cianchetta 2015 pp. 666 to 668 and Table 1 on p. 672. The paper combines probes on one ancient vessel, compares earlier Raman measurements and gives matched replicate assignments. The page acknowledges this work and asks for a broader comparison across archaeological sherds rather than asserting none exists.
- WRONG | Cianchetta's laboratory protocol peaks in the first stage instead. | https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934 | X14 (p41-03): Read Cianchetta 2015 p. 668, Replicate sherds, and Table 1. Two first-stage settings are 950 and 800 C; both have a reduction stage at 850 C. Only the 950 C set peaks first.
- WRONG | the instrument above follows the popular one | git show f5e5f84f34:public/strata/the-black-that-was-never-paint/index.html | X15 (p41-04): Re-read and executed profile() from the pinned page: the climb has shut=false, the hold has T=peak and shut=true, and cooling precedes reopening at the selected temperature. Re-read WHE's rise during reduction. The prose now describes the implemented peak hold.
- WRONG | the evidence cannot decide | https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/arts/arts-08-00070/article_deploy/arts-08-00070.pdf | X16 (p42-03): Re-read Balachandran 2019 p. 6: scientific data and experiments support multiple firings, though single and multiple firings can be visually indistinguishable and their ancient frequency is unknown. The page now separates occurrence, visual diagnosis and frequency.
- WRONG | one free time constant | git show f5e5f84f34:public/strata/the-black-that-was-never-paint/index.html | X17 (p48-01): Re-read the inline constants K_SINTER, K_REDOX and K_SEALED at f5e5f84f34. They independently set 20 minutes and 45 seconds at 900 C and 90 minutes at 830 C. The page, model comment and README now distinguish the chosen scales and activation energies from the tuned sealed pathway.
- MINOR | The gloss-to-body contrast within it is set by Herring's law | git show f5e5f84f34:public/strata/the-black-that-was-never-paint/index.html | X18 (p48-02): Re-read SIZE_RATIO = 10, HERRING_N = 3 and BODY_SLOWDOWN. Herring supplies conditional scaling, not those two inputs. Both explanations, the model comment and README now name the assumed tenfold ratio and lattice-diffusion exponent.
- MINOR | A. Solard et al. | https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | X19 (ref-54): Fetched Crossref and read the publisher byline for DOI 10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4. The first author is Baptiste Solard; the citation now reads B. Solard.
- WRONG | Raman/XANES blindness to hercynite | https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934 | X20 (ref-55): Read Cianchetta 2015 p. 668: XANES characterises hercynite, while its stated ambiguity concerns magnetite versus mixed spectra. The bibliography now separates the historically reported Raman limitation and XANES mixture ambiguity.
- MINOR | A. Luhl et al. | https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1021/ac500990k | X21 (ref-58): Fetched Crossref's DOI 10.1021/ac500990k record. Its first author is Lars Lühl; the bibliography now reads L. Lühl.
- STALE | The two carriers of 945 °C: World History Encyclopedia, "Firing Athenian black and red figure vases" (credited to the Trustees of the British Museum, no bibliography), and English Wikipedia, "Three-phase firing". | git show f5e5f84f34:memory/log.d/2026-08-15T0200Z-the-black-that-was-never-paint.md; https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/ | X22 (ref-945-carriers): Re-read the pinned 2026-08-15 author log and the current WHE Bibliography. The log records a fetch with no references; the current page lists a British Museum source, accessed 1 Dec 2016. That access date does not date when the entry became visible. The body, bibliography, dek, source record and README now distinguish these observations.
- MINOR | 6.13 orders of magnitude | git show f5e5f84f34:research/attic-black-gloss/compute.mjs; git show f5e5f84f34:public/strata/the-black-that-was-never-paint/index.html | X23 (meta-dek-4): Recomputed Math.log10(0.209476) - log10pO2(HM,1173.15) as 6.1350425312544195. compute.mjs now retains this unrounded result; the page and dek display 6.14. Generated page.json and aw-data were rebuilt; the verifier now requires full precision and its corruption control uses an altered value.
- WRONG | the wrong volume of the wrong journal | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_firing; https://ajaonline.org/toc/644/; https://berlinarchaeology.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/chaviara-aloupi-2014.pdf | X24 (meta-dek-5): Re-read Wikipedia's Literature, AJA's October 1960 contents and Chaviara and Aloupi-Siotis 2016 p. 518. The journals match. Noble's AJA volume is 64, not Wikipedia's 63; Schumann's volume is 32 in Wikipedia versus 23 in Chaviara. The dek and README now distinguish the verified Noble correction from the unresolved Schumann conflict without claiming a wrong journal.
- MINOR | Not yet put to that test. | git show f5e5f84f34:memory/log.d/2026-08-15T0200Z-the-black-that-was-never-paint.md | X25 (extra-198): Re-read the pinned author log recording 238/238 and browser readouts, the generated placard, and board notes d24c18 and 81816d. The placard needs to distinguish the author's run from the corpus test status. Triage assigns this generator-written shared wording to those notes; per scope it remains unchanged.
- MINOR | 163 to 361 ppm | https://elearning.uniroma1.it/mod/resource/view.php?id=305286 | X26 (walton-body-range): Downloaded and read Walton 2015, Results, zinc paragraph: the body-clay cluster spans 163 to 361 ppm with one outlier at 535 ppm. The page and source record retain the cluster and add the outlier; the verifier checks both.
- WRONG | The gloss sealed while it was black | git show f5e5f84f34:public/strata/the-black-that-was-never-paint/index.html | X27 (verdict-2-2): Executed the pinned model at peaks 900, 920, 945 and 950 C with richness 62 and opening 780 C. At 950 C the first stored sealed frame has T=910.4761904761905 C, gr=0 and shut=false; 920 and 945 likewise seal while red. The successful verdict now states only final black gloss and red body, and browser checks cover those final words including the counterexample settings.
- WRONG | settle six months | https://exarc.net/issue-2023-3/ea/experimenting-ancient-greek-pottery-production-process | X28 (protocol-3): Fetched and read EXARC Stages 3 and 4. Six months concerns drying kiln-floor sections; the slip rests 72 hours before siphoning and concentration. Using that duration and the unchanged assumed 50, 100 and 200 mm depths yields 0.4633538389968802, 0.6552812832870275 and 0.9267076779937604 micrometres. The displayed 0.463 to 0.927 band overlaps Cianchetta's 0.879 to 1.76 band. Source record, input, generated data, prose and false verifier comparisons were corrected.
- WRONG | settle six months | https://exarc.net/issue-2023-3/ea/experimenting-ancient-greek-pottery-production-process | X29 (protocol-result-3): Fetched and read EXARC Stages 3 and 4. Six months concerns drying kiln-floor sections; the slip rests 72 hours before siphoning and concentration. Using that duration and the unchanged assumed 50, 100 and 200 mm depths yields 0.4633538389968802, 0.6552812832870275 and 0.9267076779937604 micrometres. The displayed 0.463 to 0.927 band overlaps Cianchetta's 0.879 to 1.76 band. Source record, input, generated data, prose and false verifier comparisons were corrected.
- MINOR | four cases where a level was mistaken for a rate | git show f5e5f84f34:src/content/strata/the-level-and-the-rate.md | X30 (relates-1-3): Re-read the linked layer's markdown at f5e5f84f34. It identifies three level/rate errors and a backward-wheel sampling counterpart, explicitly not a fourth instance of the same error. The relation note now makes that distinction.
- MINOR | identical clay on one pot | https://elearning.uniroma1.it/mod/resource/view.php?id=305286 | X31 (relates-2-3): Read Walton's account that levigation alone cannot explain the composition, Chaviara 2016's differing-clay argument, and this layer's own explicit origin dispute. The relation note now names the fine gloss and coarser body without calling their clay identical.
- WRONG | the wrong volume of the wrong journal | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_firing; https://ajaonline.org/toc/644/; https://berlinarchaeology.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/chaviara-aloupi-2014.pdf | X32 (summary-world-3): Re-read Wikipedia's Literature, AJA's October 1960 contents and Chaviara and Aloupi-Siotis 2016 p. 518. The journals match. Noble's AJA volume is 64, not Wikipedia's 63; Schumann's volume is 32 in Wikipedia versus 23 in Chaviara. The dek and README now distinguish the verified Noble correction from the unresolved Schumann conflict without claiming a wrong journal.
- MINOR | four cases where a level was mistaken for a rate | git show f5e5f84f34:src/content/strata/the-level-and-the-rate.md | X33 (summary-world-5): Re-read the linked layer's markdown at f5e5f84f34. It identifies three level/rate errors and a backward-wheel sampling counterpart, explicitly not a fourth instance of the same error. The relation note now makes that distinction.
- MINOR | 2,600 to 2,800 kg/m³ | https://webmineral.com/data/Illite.shtml; https://www.handbookofmineralogy.org/pdfs/kaolinite.pdf | X34 (clay-density-range): Re-read Webmineral's illite density 2.6 to 2.9 g/cm3 and the Handbook of Mineralogy's measured kaolinite density 2.61 to 2.68. The tested 2600 to 2800 kg/m3 interval is now a chosen sensitivity band; its arithmetic is unchanged.
- MINOR | 2,600 to 2,800 kg/m³ | https://webmineral.com/data/Illite.shtml; https://www.handbookofmineralogy.org/pdfs/kaolinite.pdf | X35 (clay-density-kaolinite): Re-read Webmineral's illite density 2.6 to 2.9 g/cm3 and the Handbook of Mineralogy's measured kaolinite density 2.61 to 2.68. The tested 2600 to 2800 kg/m3 interval is now a chosen sensitivity band; its arithmetic is unchanged.
- STALE | "dateModified":"2026-08-15" | git show adbafe64b4e; git show f5e5f84f34:public/strata/the-black-that-was-never-paint/index.html | X36 (modified-date): Re-read adbafe64b4e and the pinned JSON-LD: the 2026-09-28 settling correction had left dateModified at 2026-08-15. The metadata now says 2026-10-14, the date of this revision. The substantive Corrected lines date the changes; no separate metadata update line is warranted.
- CONFIRMED | When the painter set the brush down, nothing on the vase was black. | https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/ | p01-01: Source excerpt 1, read in context: "Before the vase was placed in the kiln, it would have been orange-red in colour".
- CONFIRMED | The gloss carries no black colourant at all: it is a clay slip, and its colour is decided later by how much oxygen is in the kiln, and it can be undecided again. | https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/; https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934 | p01-02: Source excerpt 1, read in context: "Before the vase was placed in the kiln, it would have been orange-red in colour". Reoxidation/reversibility is additionally supported by Cianchetta’s "re-oxidation of black Fe2+ to red Fe3+".
- CONFIRMED | The black is not a pigment. | https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/ | p02-02: Source excerpt 1, read in context: "Before the vase was placed in the kiln, it would have been orange-red in colour".
- CONFIRMED | Nothing in it is black when it goes into the kiln, nothing black is added, and if you fire the same pot a second time in the wrong air you can take the black off again without touching it. | https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/; https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934 | p02-03: Source excerpt 1, read in context: "Before the vase was placed in the kiln, it would have been orange-red in colour". Reoxidation/reversibility is additionally supported by Cianchetta’s "re-oxidation of black Fe2+ to red Fe3+".
- CONFIRMED | What the painter laid down was a suspension of very fine clay. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p02-04: Source excerpt 2, read in context: "fine colloidal suspension of iron-rich, non-calcareous clays with substantial illitic content".
- CONFIRMED | What made it black was the removal of oxygen from the room. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p02-05: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | A painter working on a leather-hard pot in the Kerameikos around 520 BC was brushing on a slip that looked, wet, much like the pot beneath it. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-020-01134-x; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4; https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/; https://www.colorado.edu/classics/2018/06/15/athenian-red-figure-vase-painting | p03-02: Aloupi-Siotis identifies "Kerameikos, the potter’s district". Solard specifies painting "leather-hard vessels"; WHE gives the unfired orange-red appearance, and Colorado dates red-figure to "around 530 B.C.E.". The 520 BC scene is a contextual illustration, not an attested individual event.
- CONFIRMED | The design existed as a difference of sheen and a faint difference of tone. | https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/ | p03-03: Source excerpt 1, read in context: "Before the vase was placed in the kiln, it would have been orange-red in colour".
- CONFIRMED | Everything that makes the object famous arrived hours later, in the dark of a closed kiln, and arrived for the whole vase at once. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p03-04: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | It is in making it stay on only half. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p03-06: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | Three decisions, which are the three a potter actually makes. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p04-01: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | How hot the kiln gets while the vents are shut, how rich the fire runs while they are shut, and how hot the pot still is when the vents open again. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p04-02: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | Cianchetta et al.'s finding that the final oxidising stage must stay under about 800 °C or the black comes off too. | https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934 | cianchetta-800-world: Source excerpt 5, read in context: "needed to be less than 800 ° C".
- CONFIRMED | Almost all common clay carries iron. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p08-01: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | Fired in air it finishes as haematite, Fe2O3, the red of every flowerpot and roof tile you have seen. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p08-02: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | Take the oxygen away and the same iron finishes as a black spinel. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p08-03: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | Nothing is added and nothing is removed but oxygen, and the oxygen does not have to be taken out of the clay so much as out of the room. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p08-04: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | Six moles of haematite give up one mole of oxygen to become four of magnetite, and thermodynamics fixes exactly what oxygen pressure that reaction sits at for any temperature. | https://fo2.rses.anu.edu.au/fo2app/ | p09-02: Source excerpt 6, read in context: "4Fe_3O_4 + O_2 = 6Fe_2O_3".
- CONFIRMED | The black phase in a real Attic gloss is not simply magnetite. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p11-01: Source excerpt 7, read in context: "hercynite, magnetite, and maghemite".
- CONFIRMED | Analyses variously report magnetite (Fe3O4), hercynite (FeAl2O4), maghemite, and solid solutions between them, dispersed as nanocrystals in a potassium alumino-silicate glass. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-020-01134-x | p11-02: Source excerpt 8, read in context: "polycrystalline nanoparticles of magnetite or mixed magnetite/hercynite spinels".
- CONFIRMED | Haematite does come apart on its own if you get it hot enough in ordinary air, with no reducing gas at all. | git show f5e5f84f34:research/attic-black-gloss/thermo.mjs; https://fo2.rses.anu.edu.au/fo2app/ | p14-01: Confirmed by the pure-oxide calculation: the HM equilibrium reaches air at 1656.8 K, displayed as 1384 °C. This checks equilibrium instability, not the heating kinetics of an actual vase.
- CONFIRMED | So the blackening cannot be an accident of heat. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p14-04: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | It has to be supplied, deliberately, by making the fire burn dirty. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p14-05: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | Once a wood fire has eaten the free oxygen in a closed kiln, what sets the oxygen pressure is how much of the carbon leaves as carbon monoxide rather than carbon dioxide. | https://fo2.rses.anu.edu.au/fo2app/ | p15-01: ANU’s gas-mixing section gives "2CO + O_2 = 2CO_2" and the equilibrium relation. The N1 Fegley calibration excerpt alone does not support the gas claim.
- CONFIRMED | Both gases stand in equilibrium with oxygen, so a CO:CO2 ratio names an oxygen pressure exactly. | https://fo2.rses.anu.edu.au/fo2app/ | p15-02: ANU explains that the gas pairs coexist "in equilibrium" and buffer oxygen fugacity. The mapping requires a specified temperature, supplied by the next sentence.
- CONFIRMED | This is the quiet explanation for something that ought to be puzzling: how a technique that sounds impossibly delicate was in fact routine production for two centuries, turned out by the shipload, by people with no thermometers and no gas analysis. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p17-01: Source excerpt 11, read in context: "reaching its technological and aesthetic peak between the sixth and the fourth centuries BCE".
- CONFIRMED | During the reduction the pot goes black all over, gloss and ground alike, because the atmosphere reaches everything. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p18-02: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | Then the vents open, air returns, and the iron in the body goes back to red. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p18-03: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | It does not follow, and the accepted reason is that by then it is shut: the fine layer has vitrified, its pores have pinched off, and oxygen has no route in. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p18-05: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | The gloss is made from the very fine end of a clay, separated by suspending it in water and waiting. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p19-01: Source excerpt 2, read in context: "fine colloidal suspension of iron-rich, non-calcareous clays with substantial illitic content".
- CONFIRMED | Large particles fall fast, small ones fall slowly, and if you pour off the top after a while you keep only what is still up there. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-020-01134-x | p19-02: Source excerpt 12, read in context: "equivalent spherical diameter (ESD) according to the Stokes law".
- CONFIRMED | This is not folklore, it is Stokes' law, and it gives a cut size you can compute exactly. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-020-01134-x | p19-03: Source excerpt 12, read in context: "equivalent spherical diameter (ESD) according to the Stokes law".
- CONFIRMED | It is also the field's own instrument: when archaeometrists report a gloss particle size they report a Stokes equivalent spherical diameter. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-020-01134-x | p19-04: Aloupi-Siotis says "equivalent spherical diameter (ESD) according to the Stokes law" for separated clay fractions. This is the relevant size-selection convention, not a claim about every post-firing crystallite measurement.
- CONFIRMED | Modern attempts to reproduce Attic gloss report a settling time, and the times are wildly different from one another. | https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934 | p22-01: Source excerpt 13, read in context: "allowed to settle for 20 hours".
- CONFIRMED | One laboratory settled for twenty hours, which is nowhere near it. | https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934 | p23-02: Source excerpt 13, read in context: "allowed to settle for 20 hours".
- CONFIRMED | Sintering is how a powder, held hot, welds itself into a solid: particles grow necks, the pores between them shrink, and eventually the channels linking one pore to the next pinch off. | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-11667-2 | p25-02: Source excerpt 16, read in context: "the pinch-off of interconnected pore channel forms closed pores".
- CONFIRMED | A body with connected pores lets the kiln atmosphere reach every grain in it. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p25-03: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | A body whose pores have pinched shut does not. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p25-04: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | Take two powders identical in every way except that one is k times finer. | https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1063/1.1699658 | p26-02: Source excerpt 17, read in context: "when certain plausible assumptions are fulfilled simple scaling laws govern the times required".
- CONFIRMED | They reach the same stage of sintering in times related by t₂/t₁ = (d₂/d₁)n, where n is 1, 2, 3 or 4 according to which transport mechanism carries the material. | https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemical-engineering/scaling-law; https://old.vscht.cz/sil/keramika/Ceramic_Technology/SM-Lect-4-A.pdf | p26-03: Source excerpt 18, read in context: "via scaling exponents of 4 for surface and grain boundary diffusion, 3 for volume diffusion". The cited ScienceDirect page returned HTTP 403; the university lecture independently states the exponents, including 2 for vapor transport and 1 for viscous flow.
- CONFIRMED | Herring's law does not say which mechanism runs. | https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1063/1.1699658 | p26-04: Source excerpt 17, read in context: "when certain plausible assumptions are fulfilled simple scaling laws govern the times required".
- CONFIRMED | It says that whichever one runs, fineness wins, and wins as a power. | https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1063/1.1699658 | p26-05: Source excerpt 17, read in context: "when certain plausible assumptions are fulfilled simple scaling laws govern the times required".
- CONFIRMED | A potter who levigates his gloss clay to a few times finer than his body clay has not merely made it smoother. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p27-01: Source excerpt 2, read in context: "fine colloidal suspension of iron-rich, non-calcareous clays with substantial illitic content".
- CONFIRMED | So there exists a band of temperature and time in which the gloss has vitrified and closed and the body has barely begun. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p27-03: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | That band is where an Attic vase is fired, and everything else follows. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p27-04: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | The gloss goes black with the pot, seals while it is black, and then cannot hear the kiln any more. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p27-05: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | The body, still open, hears everything, and turns back. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p27-06: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | He had to make the design clay finer than the pot clay, which he wanted to do anyway because it brushes better and dries glossier. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p28-02: Source excerpt 2, read in context: "fine colloidal suspension of iron-rich, non-calcareous clays with substantial illitic content".
- CONFIRMED | The physics did the rest, and it was twenty-four centuries before anyone could have said why. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4; https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1063/1.1699658 | p28-03: Read as approximate chronology: classical vase production to the 1950 scaling account is about twenty-four centuries. Solard describes earlier investigations beginning in 1752; the sentence should not be read as denying all earlier chemical understanding.
- CONFIRMED | The gloss must be low in calcium. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p29-02: Source excerpt 2, read in context: "fine colloidal suspension of iron-rich, non-calcareous clays with substantial illitic content".
- CONFIRMED | Calcite in a clay gives off carbon dioxide as it heats, and that gas blows pores through exactly the layer that was supposed to seal, letting oxygen back to the iron and turning the black red. | https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-020-01134-x | p29-03: Cianchetta ties calcite-rich slips to higher permeability and reoxidation. Aloupi-Siotis additionally describes gas-producing "Spherical bubbles" including CO2. The carbonate decomposition is CaCO3 -> CaO + CO2.
- CONFIRMED | The two great styles of Athenian pottery are usually presented as a succession, as though the second replaced the first the way oil replaced tempera. | https://www.colorado.edu/classics/2018/06/15/athenian-red-figure-vase-painting | p30-01: Source excerpt 22, read in context: "The red-figure technique of vase painting was invented in Athens around 530 B.C.E.".
- CONFIRMED | They are not different techniques. | https://www.colorado.edu/classics/2018/06/15/athenian-red-figure-vase-painting | p30-02: Source excerpt 23, read in context: "the same three-stage firing process that vases painted in the black-figure technique did".
- CONFIRMED | The clay is the same clay, the slip is the same slip, the firing is the same firing. | https://www.colorado.edu/classics/2018/06/15/athenian-red-figure-vase-painting | p30-03: Source excerpt 23, read in context: "the same three-stage firing process that vases painted in the black-figure technique did".
- CONFIRMED | The only thing that changes is which side of the outline the brush is on. | https://www.colorado.edu/classics/2018/06/15/athenian-red-figure-vase-painting | p30-04: Source excerpt 22, read in context: "The red-figure technique of vase painting was invented in Athens around 530 B.C.E.".
- CONFIRMED | In black-figure the painter puts slip on the figures and leaves the background bare. | https://www.colorado.edu/classics/2018/06/15/athenian-red-figure-vase-painting | p31-01: Source excerpt 22, read in context: "The red-figure technique of vase painting was invented in Athens around 530 B.C.E.".
- CONFIRMED | In red-figure, from around 530 BC, he paints the background and leaves the figures bare. | https://www.colorado.edu/classics/2018/06/15/athenian-red-figure-vase-painting | p31-02: Source excerpt 22, read in context: "The red-figure technique of vase painting was invented in Athens around 530 B.C.E.".
- CONFIRMED | On a black-figure vase interior detail has to be cut through the dried slip with a needle, which gives a hard, even, scratched contour. | https://www.colorado.edu/classics/2018/06/15/athenian-red-figure-vase-painting | p32-02: Source excerpt 22, read in context: "The red-figure technique of vase painting was invented in Athens around 530 B.C.E.".
- CONFIRMED | On a red-figure vase the detail is drawn with a brush in slip on bare clay, which gives a line that can swell and taper and lift. | https://www.colorado.edu/classics/2018/06/15/athenian-red-figure-vase-painting | p32-03: Source excerpt 22, read in context: "The red-figure technique of vase painting was invented in Athens around 530 B.C.E.".
- CONFIRMED | The style changed because the drawing changed, and the drawing changed because the painter stopped fighting the material. | https://www.colorado.edu/classics/2018/06/15/athenian-red-figure-vase-painting | p32-04: Source excerpt 22, read in context: "The red-figure technique of vase painting was invented in Athens around 530 B.C.E.".
- CONFIRMED | The temperature in the kiln continued to rise to around 945º C. | https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/ | whe-945-quote: Source excerpt 24, read in context: "The temperature in the kiln continued to rise to around 945º C.".
- CONFIRMED | The first is a widely syndicated article on the World History Encyclopedia, credited to the Trustees of the British Museum | https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/ | whe-credit: Source excerpt 25, read in context: "Trustees of the British Museum".
- CONFIRMED | The second is the English Wikipedia article on three-phase firing, which says the temperature was held probably at about 945 °C (1,733 °F). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_firing | wiki-945-quote: Source excerpt 26, read in context: "probably at about 945 °C (1,733 °F)".
- CONFIRMED | The Wikipedia article attributes its account to Noble 1960 and Schumann 1942, and both citations are defective in ways that are checkable in a minute. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_firing | p35-01: Source excerpt 27, read in context: "Joseph Veach Noble: The Technique of Attic Vase Painting. In: AJA 63 (1960).".
- CONFIRMED | It gives Noble as AJA 63 (1960); the American Journal of Archaeology's own table of contents puts The Technique of Attic Vase-Painting in volume 64, issue 4, pages 307 to 318. | https://ajaonline.org/toc/644/ | p35-02: Source excerpt 28, read in context: "October 1960 (64.4)".
- CONFIRMED | It gives Schumann's paper as volume 32 of the Berichte der deutschen keramischen Gesellschaft, where the archaeometric literature consistently gives volume 23. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_firing | p35-03: Source excerpt 29, read in context: "Berichte der deutschen keramischen Gesellschaft 32 (1942)".
- CONFIRMED | It gives Noble as AJA 63 (1960) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_firing | wiki-noble-quote: Source excerpt 27, read in context: "Joseph Veach Noble: The Technique of Attic Vase Painting. In: AJA 63 (1960).".
- CONFIRMED | What the measurement literature gives is a band, not a number. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p36-01: Source excerpt 30, read in context: "max temperatures ranging from 850 to 950°C".
- CONFIRMED | Estimates from gloss microstructure put the maximum at 850 to 950 °C, and the best-documented successful modern reproduction fired at 890 to 900 °C. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4; https://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i29/Probing-Attic-Black-Glaze.html; https://berlinarchaeology.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/chaviara-aloupi-2014.pdf | p36-02: The 850 to 950 °C microstructure estimate is in Solard. The original ACS report gives "890–900 °C" for the Thetis reproduction. The N1 source instead says "890–910 °C", so it is not the source for the narrower range.
- CONFIRMED | the best-documented successful modern reproduction fired at 890 to 900 °C. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4; https://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i29/Probing-Attic-Black-Glaze.html; https://berlinarchaeology.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/chaviara-aloupi-2014.pdf | replication-temperature: The 850 to 950 °C microstructure estimate is in Solard. The original ACS report gives "890–900 °C" for the Thetis reproduction. The N1 source instead says "890–910 °C", so it is not the source for the narrower range.
- CONFIRMED | Museum labels present this technique as solved. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p38-01: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | The specialist literature does not. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p38-02: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | These are live disputes between serious groups, as of the most recent work this page could reach. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p38-03: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | The classical view is levigation of the same clay. | https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/ | p39-02: Source excerpt 1, read in context: "Before the vase was placed in the kiln, it would have been orange-red in colour".
- CONFIRMED | Kingery argued in 1991 that levigation alone cannot account for the composition and invoked an added potassium deflocculant. | https://elearning.uniroma1.it/mod/resource/view.php?id=305286; https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/267801/1/267801.pdf | p39-03: Walton attributes the levigation argument to Kingery 1991; Jones reports "a potassium-rich ingredient (such as wood ash) or a particular “glaze clay.”" It was a proposed explanation, not a settled identification of the ancient additive.
- CONFIRMED | Chaviara and Aloupi-Siotis answered in 2016 that the zinc simply characterises ferruginous clays near the silver-lead mines of Laurion, and that suitable illitic clays disperse in water unaided, needing no additive at all. | https://berlinarchaeology.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/chaviara-aloupi-2014.pdf | p39-05: Source excerpt 34, read in context: "points to the occasional use in antiquity of claydeposits from Laurium".
- CONFIRMED | The zinc is the crux, and it has two irreconcilable readings from two serious groups. | https://berlinarchaeology.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/chaviara-aloupi-2014.pdf | p39-06: Source excerpt 34, read in context: "points to the occasional use in antiquity of claydeposits from Laurium".
- CONFIRMED | Magnetite, hercynite, maghemite, or solid solutions: different studies report different answers. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p40-01: Source excerpt 7, read in context: "hercynite, magnetite, and maghemite".
- CONFIRMED | The same replicate has been listed as hercynite by one technique and magnetite by another, in one paper's own table. | https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934 | p40-04: Source excerpt 36, read in context: "Hercynite (XANES), Magnetite (Raman)".
- CONFIRMED | The popular account has the temperature rising through the reduction to a peak. | https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/ | p41-01: Source excerpt 37, read in context: "The temperature in the kiln continued to rise to around 945º C.".
- CONFIRMED | Aloupi-Siotis and colleagues describe the temperature falling during it. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p41-02: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | Bente, Posamentir and Berthold proposed in 2015 an alternative in which the ware is fired entirely in oxidising conditions. | https://www.dmg-home.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Archeometrie/pdfs/Mainz_2015_Tagungsband.pdf | p42-01: Source excerpt 39, read in context: "ein Brand in ausschließlich oxidativer Prozessführung bis ca. 900°C möglich".
- CONFIRMED | The entire oxidise-reduce-reoxidise account depends on a permeability contrast: the gloss must be closed to oxygen while the body is open to it. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p43-01: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | The thicknesses are known well (black gloss layers measure 7.5 to 33.3 µm, mean 14.3 µm, in the best-documented recent dataset); the property that makes them work is not. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | p43-04: Source excerpt 41, read in context: "The thickness of the black gloss layers ranges from 7.5 to 33.3µm (mean 14.3µm)".
- CONFIRMED | Modern replicators do use dispersing agents, sodium silicate and sodium hexametaphosphate among them, and openly describe them as a modern convenience. | https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934 | p44-03: Source excerpt 42, read in context: "In this work we used sodium silicate and sodium carbonate".
- CONFIRMED | That is laboratory practice, not evidence about Athens. | https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934 | p44-04: Source excerpt 42, read in context: "In this work we used sodium silicate and sodium carbonate".
- CONFIRMED | hedged there with perhaps | https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/ | water-perhaps-quote: Source excerpt 37, read in context: "The temperature in the kiln continued to rise to around 945º C.".
- CONFIRMED | experimental reconstructions use green leaves, damp clippings or olive pits. | https://exarc.net/issue-2023-3/ea/experimenting-ancient-greek-pottery-production-process | reconstruction-fuels: Source excerpt 43, read in context: "reduced the atmosphere by adding abundant green leaves".
- CONFIRMED | Thermochemistry: NIST-JANAF Thermochemical Tables, 4th ed. (M. W. Chase, 1998), via the NIST Chemistry WebBook, SRD 69. Haematite, magnetite, wustite, oxygen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide. | https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?ID=C1317608&Units=SI&Mask=2#Thermo-Condensed | ref-nist: Source excerpt 44, read in context: "Chase, M.W., Jr.".
- CONFIRMED | The independent magnetite-haematite fit: B. Fegley, Practical Chemical Thermodynamics for Geoscientists (2013), as implemented in the ANU oxygen fugacity calculator (M. Anenburg, 2026, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, doi:10.1029/2026gc013032), calibrated 950 to 1870 K. | https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1029/2026gc013032; https://fo2.rses.anu.edu.au/fo2app/ | ref-52: Crossref names Michael Anenburg and the 2026 G-cubed article. ANU gives Fegley 2013, Table 10-16, the stated coefficients and 950 to 1870 K range. This confirms the reference and formula, not the stronger furnace-only provenance claim in p12-03.
- CONFIRMED | Sintering scaling: C. Herring, "Effect of change of scale on sintering phenomena", Journal of Applied Physics 21 (1950) 301, doi:10.1063/1.1699658. | https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1063/1.1699658 | ref-53: Source excerpt 46, read in context: "Effect of Change of Scale on Sintering Phenomena".
- CONFIRMED | The zinc and calcium composition argument: M. S. Walton et al., Journal of the American Ceramic Society 98 (2015) 430, doi:10.1111/jace.13337. | https://elearning.uniroma1.it/mod/resource/view.php?id=305286; https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1111/jace.13337 | ref-56: The paper names Marc Walton, volume 98, pages 430 to 436, in the 2015 issue. Crossref’s 2014 issued date is online publication; it does not contradict the 2015 volume citation.
- CONFIRMED | The counter-argument on zinc and on spontaneous dispersion: A. Chaviara and E. Aloupi-Siotis, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 7 (2016) 510, doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2015.08.016. | https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1016/j.jasrep.2015.08.016 | ref-57: Source excerpt 50, read in context: "Artemi".
- CONFIRMED | The wood-kiln critique of electric-kiln replication: S. Balachandran, Arts 8 (2019) 70, doi:10.3390/arts8020070 (open access). | https://api.crossref.org/works/10.3390/arts8020070 | ref-59: Source excerpt 52, read in context: "Sanchita".
- CONFIRMED | The citation the page checked itself: American Journal of Archaeology, volume 64 issue 4 (1960), table of contents, giving J. V. Noble, "The Technique of Attic Vase-Painting", pages 307 to 318. | https://ajaonline.org/toc/644/ | ref-aja: Source excerpt 28, read in context: "October 1960 (64.4)".
- CONFIRMED | The black on an Athenian vase contains no black pigment. | https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/ | meta-dek-1: Source excerpt 1, read in context: "Before the vase was placed in the kiln, it would have been orange-red in colour".
- CONFIRMED | It is a clay slip that went into the kiln the colour of the pot, and what turned it black was the removal of oxygen from the room. | https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/ | meta-dek-2: Source excerpt 1, read in context: "Before the vase was placed in the kiln, it would have been orange-red in colour".
- CONFIRMED | Why Greek vases are black and orange, and why the black is not paint. | https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/ | meta-plain-1: Source excerpt 1, read in context: "Before the vase was placed in the kiln, it would have been orange-red in colour".
- CONFIRMED | The design is a slip of very fine clay, the same colour as the pot when it is brushed on, and it turns black only when the potter shuts the kiln vents and the fire eats the oxygen. | https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/ | meta-plain-2: Source excerpt 1, read in context: "Before the vase was placed in the kiln, it would have been orange-red in colour".
- CONFIRMED | The pot's body turns back to red when the vents open again; the sealed slip cannot follow it. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | meta-plain-3: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln".
- CONFIRMED | It is a clay slip whose colour is decided by the oxygen in the kiln, and it can be undecided again. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4; https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934 | extra-192: Source excerpt 3, read in context: "three-stage oxidising-reducing-oxidising process in an updraft kiln". Reoxidation/reversibility is additionally supported by Cianchetta’s "re-oxidation of black Fe2+ to red Fe3+".
- CONFIRMED | Nothing on an Athenian vase was black when the painter put the brush down. | https://www.worldhistory.org/article/241/firing-athenian-black-and-red-figure-vases/ | extra-195: Source excerpt 1, read in context: "Before the vase was placed in the kiln, it would have been orange-red in colour".
- CONFIRMED | The Technique of Attic Vase-Painting | https://ajaonline.org/toc/644/ | aja-title-quotation: Source excerpt 28, read in context: "October 1960 (64.4)".
- CONFIRMED | where the archaeometric literature consistently gives volume 23. | https://berlinarchaeology.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/chaviara-aloupi-2014.pdf | schumann-volume-23: Source excerpt 53, read in context: "Ber. Dtsch. Keram. Ges. 23, 408–427.".
- CONFIRMED | Kingery argued in 1991 that levigation alone cannot account for the composition and invoked an added potassium deflocculant. | https://elearning.uniroma1.it/mod/resource/view.php?id=305286; https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/267801/1/267801.pdf | kingery-potassium: Walton attributes the levigation argument to Kingery 1991; Jones reports "a potassium-rich ingredient (such as wood ash) or a particular “glaze clay.”" It was a proposed explanation, not a settled identification of the ancient additive.
- CONFIRMED | suitable illitic clays disperse in water unaided, needing no additive at all. | https://berlinarchaeology.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/chaviara-aloupi-2014.pdf | spontaneous-dispersion: Source excerpt 56, read in context: "without the use of any additives".
- CONFIRMED | at least some red-figure ware was fired more than once | https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934 | multi-firing-evidence: Source excerpt 57, read in context: "Our results confirm the necessity of multiple firings and painting applications".
- CONFIRMED | experimental reconstructions use green leaves, damp clippings or olive pits. | https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/arts/arts-08-00070/article_deploy/arts-08-00070.pdf | fuel-olive-clippings: Source excerpt 58, read in context: "olive pits and damp hedge clippings".
- CONFIRMED | The wood-kiln critique of electric-kiln replication: S. Balachandran, Arts 8 (2019) 70, doi:10.3390/arts8020070 (open access). | https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/arts/arts-08-00070/article_deploy/arts-08-00070.pdf | wood-kiln-critique: Source excerpt 59, read in context: "An electric kiln also does not have the same degree of unreliability inherent to a wood fired kiln".
- CONFIRMED | Surviving vases carry exactly this failure in patches, where part of the kiln ran differently from the rest. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4 | verdict-5-3: Source excerpt 60, read in context: "The wood firing method induces localised variations of atmosphere in the firing chamber".
- CONFIRMED | Cianchetta et al. 2015 settle 20 hours, decant the supernatant | https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934 | protocol-1: Source excerpt 13, read in context: "allowed to settle for 20 hours".
- CONFIRMED | the gloss clay's origin is a live four-way dispute | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-020-01134-x; https://elearning.uniroma1.it/mod/resource/view.php?id=305286; https://berlinarchaeology.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/chaviara-aloupi-2014.pdf | summary-world-1: The preparation alternatives were compared across Solard, Aloupi-Siotis, Walton and Chaviara; the sources describe vitrified fine gloss and a more permeable body. The linked window page alone is not evidence for Attic ceramic properties.
- CONFIRMED | a chunk of the magnetite-versus-hercynite literature is an artefact of which instrument was pointed at the sherd | https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1214934 | summary-world-2: Source excerpt 35, read in context: "whether or not hercynite is present in ceramics cannot be determined by Raman spectroscopy".
- CONFIRMED | The Attic gloss works precisely because a fine clay layer vitrifies into a sealed glassy skin at a temperature where the coarse body beneath it has barely sintered. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-023-01822-4; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-020-01134-x; https://elearning.uniroma1.it/mod/resource/view.php?id=305286; https://berlinarchaeology.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/chaviara-aloupi-2014.pdf | summary-world-4: The preparation alternatives were compared across Solard, Aloupi-Siotis, Walton and Chaviara; the sources describe vitrified fine gloss and a more permeable body. The linked window page alone is not evidence for Attic ceramic properties.
- CONFIRMED | Mechanism n Gloss 5× finer 10× 20× viscous flow 1 5× 10× 20× evaporation and condensation 2 25× 100× 400× lattice diffusion 3 125× 1,000× 8,000× grain-boundary diffusion 4 625× 10,000× 160,000× | https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemical-engineering/scaling-law; https://old.vscht.cz/sil/keramika/Ceramic_Technology/SM-Lect-4-A.pdf | herring-exponents: Source excerpt 18, read in context: "via scaling exponents of 4 for surface and grain boundary diffusion, 3 for volume diffusion". The cited ScienceDirect page returned HTTP 403; the university lecture independently states the exponents, including 2 for vapor transport and 1 for viscous flow.
- CONFIRMED | calibrated 950 to 1870 K. | https://fo2.rses.anu.edu.au/fo2app/ | fegley-calibration: Source excerpt 9, read in context: "cited calibration range from 950 K to 1870 K".
- CONFIRMED | (added) Both follow iron oxides through heat and atmosphere. | git show f5e5f84f34:src/content/strata/the-color-that-was-not-a-temperature.md; git show f5e5f84f34:public/strata/the-black-that-was-never-paint/index.html | added-nearby: The sibling’s relation explicitly says "The pottery page changes oxide phase to make black; this page changes film thickness to make interference colors." The pottery model independently uses the iron-oxide boundaries.

## Findings

- [fixed] X1: Three reference rate scales disclosed in both page explanations, the inline model comment and README; one shared Corrected line.
- [fixed] X2: Assumed size ratio and mechanism disclosed; no page correction line for this MINOR item.
- [fixed] X3: Rounded once at display, giving 6.14; no page correction line for this MINOR item.
- [fixed] X4: Density interval labelled as a chosen sensitivity band in the page and computation comment; no MINOR page line.
- [fixed] X5: Retained the EXARC row with 72 hours, recomputed the size band and dependent comparison, added its source link and one shared Corrected line.
- [fixed] X6: Conditional flocculation and natural dispersion stated; one shared Corrected line.
- [fixed] X7: Conditional flocculation and natural dispersion stated; one shared Corrected line.
- [fixed] X8: Conway changed to Conyers; Corrected line added.
- [fixed] X9: Flaking generalisation narrowed to a possible outcome and the source's qualified example; no MINOR page line.
- [dated] X10: Present-tense absence removed; both items share one Updated 2026-10-14 line recording the earlier observation and current entry without guessing an appearance date.
- [fixed] X11: 535 ppm outlier appended; no MINOR page line.
- [fixed] X12: Raman claim limited to the 2015 report and subsequent detection cited; Corrected line added.
- [fixed] X13: Existing matched work acknowledged and the desired broader comparison specified; no MINOR page line.
- [fixed] X14: Both laboratory schedules stated; Corrected line added.
- [fixed] X15: Instrument trajectory described accurately; Corrected line added.
- [fixed] X16: Multiple-firing evidence retained with limits on visual diagnosis and frequency; Corrected line added.
- [fixed] X17: Three reference rate scales disclosed in both page explanations, the inline model comment and README; one shared Corrected line.
- [fixed] X18: Assumed size ratio and mechanism disclosed; no page correction line for this MINOR item.
- [fixed] X19: A. changed to B. Solard; no MINOR page line.
- [fixed] X20: False XANES blindness removed; Corrected line added.
- [fixed] X21: A. Luhl changed to L. Lühl; no MINOR page line.
- [dated] X22: Present-tense absence removed; both items share one Updated 2026-10-14 line recording the earlier observation and current entry without guessing an appearance date.
- [fixed] X23: Rounded once at display, giving 6.14; no page correction line for this MINOR item.
- [fixed] X24: Wrong-journal claim removed and volume distinction preserved; one shared Corrected line.
- [declined] X25: NOT FIXED: shared generator wording deferred under board notes d24c18 and 81816d; recorded as MINOR with [declined], as directed.
- [fixed] X26: 535 ppm outlier appended; no MINOR page line.
- [fixed] X27: Success verdict limited to final colours; Corrected line added.
- [fixed] X28: Retained the EXARC row with 72 hours, recomputed the size band and dependent comparison, added its source link and one shared Corrected line.
- [fixed] X29: Retained the EXARC row with 72 hours, recomputed the size band and dependent comparison, added its source link and one shared Corrected line.
- [fixed] X30: Relation note says three cases plus a sampling counterpart; no MINOR page line.
- [fixed] X31: Identical clay removed from the relation note; no MINOR page line.
- [fixed] X32: Wrong-journal claim removed and volume distinction preserved; one shared Corrected line.
- [fixed] X33: Relation note says three cases plus a sampling counterpart; no MINOR page line.
- [fixed] X34: Density interval labelled as a chosen sensitivity band in the page and computation comment; no MINOR page line.
- [fixed] X35: Density interval labelled as a chosen sensitivity band in the page and computation comment; no MINOR page line.
- [dated] X36: dateModified set to 2026-10-14 under the metadata exception; no separate dated page line.