Cultural relics are precious and nonrenewable resources. Scientific dating is the key to research on cultural relics, and luminescence technology is an important method for dating ceramic cultural relics. Currently, the methods for dating ceramic cultural relics include the conventional thermoluminescence (TL) method and the TL predose method. Few reports on the use of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) to determine the age of cultural relics are available.

This study aims to verify the reliability of the dating of porcelain cultural relics by luminescence method, and expand the method of dating porcelain cultural relics.

The conventional TL, TL predose, and OSL single-aliquot regenerative-dose (SAR) methods were employed to date an celadon glazed porcelain piece unearthed from the Qinglong Town ruins in Shanghai. Then, the dating results of three method were compared for applicability analysis.

The results indicate that the signal for the porcelain obtained using the conventional TL method is almost zero when the temperature is between 300 ℃ and 450 ℃, making it difficult to accurately calculate the equivalent dose. The ages of the TL predose and SAR methods are (1.16±0.05) ka and (1.35±0.05) ka, respectively, which are consistent within the error range.

The results of this study indicate that the OSL technique can be used to date porcelain cultural relics. For the celadon glazed porcelain piece examined in this study, the dating results of TL pre-dose and SAR methods are kept consistent.