THE UISPP JOURNAL
Bogdan Costantinescu, Daniela Cristea-Stan – XRF, PIXE AND SR-XRF STUDIES ON PREHISTORIC GOLD PROVENANCE
One of the most efficient methods to authenticate ancient gold artifacts and find their provenance is to identify trace elements – Sn, Sb, Te, PGA (especially Pt, Ir-Os, Pd), considered as “fingerprints” of a geological source, as ancient metallurgy techniques did not remove them. In the case of prehistoric and Dacian gold artifacts we begun in 2006 a study on possible traces of tin (fingerprint of alluvial gold), antimony and tellurium (fingerprints for Transylvanian native gold) preserved in the objects, most probably nano-inclusions as a consequence of a primitive metallurgy. The employed investigation tools are XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence), micro-SR- XRF (Synchrotron Radiation – X-Ray Fluorescence) and micro-PIXE (Proton Induced X-ray Emission). The paper presents the main results obtained in the frame of this study.
Reference as:
Costantinescu B, Cristea-Stan D. 2019. XRF, PIXE and SR-XRF studies on prehistoric gold provenance. UISPP Journal 2(1), pp 57–65. https://doi.org/10.62526/4B7FCB
