14th International Conference on Nuclear Microprobe Technology and Applications

A comparative study of Etruscan and Tartesic gold jewels by micro-XRF

11 Jul 2014, 12:10

20m

Auditorium (Centro Culturale San Gaetano, Padova)

Oral Communication Session 11 - Nuclear Microprobe Applications: Art and Archaeometry

Speaker

Mrs Simona Scrivano (Centro Nacional de Aceleradores, (Universidad de Sevilla-CSIC-J. Andalucía), Spain)

Description

Tartesic and Etruscan civilizations were coevals and show similar characteristics in jewel materials and manufacture. The aim of this work is to extend our studies on Tartesic jewellery carried on in the last 15 years by comparing these results with data obtained on some selected Etruscan gold works. Such an intercomparison can help to elucidate the early evolution of gold jewellery manufacturing technology and the geographical spread of this knowledge in ancient times. A set of Etruscan jewels dating between the 8th and the 4th centuries BC of the National Archaeological Museum of Florence has been studied by means of XRF, a multi-elemental, non-destructive, non-invasive, highly sensitive, fast and portable technique. As the analyzed Etruscan jewels are characterised by fineness and elaborate decorations, with details of typical dimensions down to tens of microns, a high spatial resolution is required to study the soldering technique and the features of the objects. The micro-XRF set-up developed at the Centro Nacional de Aceleradores (Sevilla) is equipped with a polycapillary mini-lens in the excitation channel providing a micro-beam of 30 µm FWHM spot size. The design of the spectrometer allows for easy and fast measurements and the measuring head can be mounted both horizontally and vertically, depending on the sample. We characterized the bulk composition of the alloys, the welding/soldering zones and the decorations of each jewel. These results allow identifying the manufacturing method and comparing the Tartesic and Etruscan techniques.