• Journal of Conservation Science
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.229-245
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• 2010

The pupose of this study was to identify the material characteristics, firing environments and making techniques for the jar coffins from the Oryangdong kiln site and the Ungokdong tomb site in Naju. All jar coffins had very similar physical, mineralogical and geochemical characteristics, although it was excavated from the different sites. The wall thickness of the jar coffins was about 2.3 to 5.3 cm. Under the microscopy, the jar coffins include a large quantity of various quartz with some microcrystalline and showed partly orthoclase and biotite. It is presumed that the mineral sherds added to maintain the thick wall and to control the percentage of contraction during drying and firing of jar coffins and it has contained about 11.4 to 19.8 %. Firing temperature of the jar coffins is estimated as 1,000 to $1,150^{\circ}C$. Also, all jar coffins and soils show similar geochemical behavior of elements and clay-mineralization degree within the site. This indicates making that the soil is probable to be a raw material of the jar coffins. But it shows different characteristics in major elements of soils which is collected at the kiln floor and the trench region of the Oryangdong kiln site because of the lack of quartz and feldspar in the soils. Therefore, it can use of the jar coffins making clay, if it goes through a simple special process such as mixing temper.