[Truncated abstract] The sale of fraudulent South-East Asian ceramics constitutes a large proportion of the illegal artefact and antique trade and threatens to undermine the legitimate international market. The sophistication and skill of forgers has reached a level where, using traditional appraisal by eye and hand, even the most experienced specialist is often unable to distinguish between a genuine and fraudulent piece. In addition, the current scientific method of authentication used by the international antiques and art industry, thermoluminescence (TL) dating, carries severe limitations. The technique has an error margin of +/-20 % and requires the removal of a significant piece of the sample being tested, which decreases both the monetary and cultural value of the artefact. Of more concern, forgers have developed methods which produce false test results and which appear to corroborate false claims for the age of artefacts. Consequently, the use of TL dating for authentication of ancient ceramics, especially those of South-East Asian origin, has now come into serious question. The most suitable method for authenticating ceramics is through provenance establishment. Studies published in the literature have investigated the application of various analytical techniques to provide this information for ceramic wares and have highlighted their potential to be used for provenance establishment. However, the value of each of these techniques is limited rendering them generally unsuitable for practical use in the international antiques and art world to authenticate high-value South-East Asian artefacts. Consequently, there is a desperate need for the development of a robust, accurate and non-destructive method which can be practically applied in the industry to authenticate South-East Asian ceramics. ... Minor variations between spectral profiles of artefacts produced in the same country have also been used to further provenance artefacts to a specific production region or kiln site. The results of analyses have been compiled to form a unique reference database which can be added to in the future and used by experts internationally. Adaptation of the developed sampling and analytical methodologies to allow in-situ sampling of large artefacts using the