Examination of Haban Vessels With Uranium-Bearing Blue Glaze
Examination of Haban Vessels With Uranium-Bearing Blue Glaze

Summary/Abstract: From the mid-15th century “berettino”, or “turchino”, lighter and darker, deep blue, cobalt- bearing glazes were used on Italian maiolica objects. At first such vessels were made mainly in Faenza, later they spread to Northern Italy and from the 17th century they became popular throughout Europe. According to written sources and archaeological finds, potters working in the Anabaptist-Hutterite settlements used blue glaze right from the start. From the second half of the 17th century there was an increase in the quantity of light and dark blue vessels that were made in many places. In the course of archaeometric research using a handheld X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (XRF), more than 500 Hutterite and Haban objects were analysed; of these circa 140 had a blue glaze. The measurements made on blue glazes and decorations found uranium in addition to cobalt in 107 objects. Some of the 17th century vessels and stove tiles were made in Alvinc (Vinţu de Jos, Romania), Sárospatak, and probably in Szobotist (Sobotište, Slovakia). The vessels with a blue or a white glaze, generally painted roughly with a brush, form a characteristic group provisionally attributed to a “mining town workshop”. Their production began at the end of the 17th century and was passed on by tradition until the 1780s. The workshop probably operated in the vicinity of a mining town in the former Zólyom county, along the upper reaches of the Garam river, in the vicinity of Besztercebánya (Banská Bystrica, Slovakia).

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