4. Analysis of inorganic materials

Inorganic heritage materials mainly include metals, synthetic and natural glasses, glazes, ceramics, stone, gems, building materials, biomaterials and most pigments. A recent survey of the latest publications in archaeometry [12] showed that a third of the literature is dedicated to ceramics and a quarter to metals, with X-ray fluorescence (FX) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), coupled or not with an EDX system, largely leading the techniques used.