This dataset includes the mechanical and thermal properties test data on sugar pots retrieved in Sicily from 11th-16th cent. AD contexts. These data were collected as part of the project “SPotEU: Sugar Pot manufacture in Western Europe in the medieval and post-medieval period (11th -16th centuries AD)”, funded under the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/797242).

Two disks with a diameter of c. 30 mm were cut out of each wall fragment using a diamond coated cup-hole saw. The surfaces of the disks were polished afterwards in order to be flat and parallel with a thickness of 7 to 10 mm. The heat transfer properties were determined by means of the transient plane source (TPS) method (Log and Gustafsson 1995). For this, a Trident Thermal Conductivity Instrument was used (C-Therm Technologies Ltd.). A flexible TPS sensor with a diameter of 6 mm was placed between two disks of the same fragment in order to measure simultaneously thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity and the specific heat capacity of the specimens. Each measurement was repeated five times in order to estimate the analytical uncertainty of the method. For determining the mechanical fracture strength of the specimens an INSTRON 1195 universal testing machine was used (Illinois Tool Works Inc.). The disks were tested by means of the biaxial flexure test (Shetty et al. 1980, 1983, Morrell 1998). For this, they were placed on a hollow steel cylinder with an inner diameter of c. 21.7 mm and a spherical steel indenter with 2.5 mm diameter was pressed in the in the centre of the disk with a speed of 0.1 mm/min. The increasing load was recorded until final fracture of the ceramic specimen. The fracture strength was estimated taking into account disk dimension, maximum load at fracture, size of supporting cylinder as well as the contact area between indenter and ceramic surface.

The dataset also includes a file with a description of each sample.