The aluminium nitride raw material in the form of powder was synthesized using the Self propagating High temperature Synthesis (SHS) method which provides no oxygen im purities. Then AIN powder was sintered to the fu II density without sintering additives a nd under a high pressure in a belt apparatus. For the AIN ceramics obtained the temperature dependences of the thermal diffusivity were measured with the laser-flash method. Finally we produced oxygen-free aluminium nitride ceramics with parameters comparable with theoretical data.