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XRF analysis of some Dark Age coins and jewellery
... In Fig. 10 the concentrations of copper and silver entering in the composition of gold jewellery and gold coins produced in the Mediterranean area in the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods are reported (for the late Roman and Byzantine coins: Metcalf and Schweizer, 1970;Hawkes et al., 1966;Oddy, 1988;Oddy and Hughes, 1975;Grierson and Blackburn, 1986;Morrisson et al., 1985;Arslan et al., 1983;Guest, 2005;Blet-Lemarquand et al., 2010;Bartlett et al., 2011;Hall and Metcalf, 1988; for the Early Islamic period: Gondonneau and ; for the jewellery: Ross, 1962;Oddy and La Niece, 1986;Yeroulanou, 1999;Johns, 2011). As expected (Guerra et al., 2007), most of the jewellery items contain higher Cu contents than the coins; from the diagram it can also be observed that the Byzantine and the Early Islamic coins are made from the same gold alloys (Gondonneau and . ...
Fifty-eight gold leaf tesserae from eight archaeological sites situated in the Byzantine Empire and two Early Islamic (one in medieval Palestine), covering the period that goes from the 4th c. to the 12th c., were analysed by EPMA, SEM-EDS and PIXE-PIGE to determine the composition of both the glass and the gold leaves. The good match until the 6th c. between circulating monetary alloys and the gold leaf compositions together with the type of glass used, provided criteria that can be used to date the tesserae fabrication. The data obtained allow newly produced tesserae to be distinguished from re-used ones. Because after the 7th c. the circulation of gold in the Byzantine Empire was less controlled, the same relationship is harder to establish.
... lections. Their analysis, published during the past 50 years in Archaeometry , has provided many sorts of information. The manufacturing techniques of Mesopotamian seals (Sax and Middleton 1992;Sax and Meeks 1995;Sax et al . 1998), of copper-based objects (Shalev and Northover 1993), of clay pipes (Alvey and Laxton 1978) and of coins and jewellery (Hawkes et al . 1966;Brown and Schweizer 1973;Bateson and Hedges 1975) have all been established. The nature of pigments (David et al . 2001) and the provenance of the metals used in statues (Srinivasan 1999), jewellery (Guerra et al . 2006) and coinage (Gondonneau and Guerra 2002) have been defined. ...
Artefacts and works of art kept in museum collections originated in many cases from ancient private collections. In such cases, a partial or total absence of historical information may create additional problems concerning their authenticity. The study of museum collections and their preservation requires the use of analytical techniques but also combined examination techniques not commonly necessary for the study of archaeological objects. This paper gives an overview of the importance of museum items for the understanding of the past, the difficulties relating to their authentication and the significant advances brought about by science-based techniques, in particular those cases discussed in Archaeometry during the past 50 years.
The standard methods of philological reconstruction usually enable us to work back from the earliest recorded examples of a particular language and to reconstruct earlier stages – especially when the language in question has known close relatives. The Early Old English of the 7th to 9th centuries AD is far from unrecorded. In light of both of those facts, it is remarkable how far newly found specimens of the language, in runic inscriptions, are revealing quite new aspects of Old English. This paper considers three such examples in detail, all of them containing grammatically complete sentences. The evidence includes not only a previously unidentified runic graph, with its own implications for phonological awareness in the users of the runic script in Anglo-Saxon England, but also a range of morphological and lexical phenomena that altogether shed considerable light on varieties of Old English as early as the 8th century and on the value of this material for understanding the developing role of literacy across the period too.
Jewellery, dress accessories and other personal ornaments made of precious metal and decorated with gemstones were representative elements (prestige objects) of Migration-period supra-regional fashion in Europe. Due to their valuable materials and impressive appearance, these polychrome artefacts are highlighted items in art albums and exhibition catalogues as the key objects of the period. Their vast majority represents high standard of workmanship even from a modern perspective. A small minority comprises, however, objects of lower or even poor quality, falling below the standard. This paper focuses on these exceptions. Dozen finds showing low-quality workmanship are collected, analysed and interpreted below, with special attention to their technical features, material compositions as well as their functions as status indicator. Our results indicated that the poorly-made objects were produced in workshops of local significance following and imitating high-standard models. The observed technological features pointed out that their makers were inexperienced in techniques requiring meticulous work and precision. The analytical data revealed, however, that they were dominantly made of high purity gold with a composition of partly or wholly identical to that of the technically outstanding items. Apparently, the high social status was not so demanding on the workmanship, rather the quality of the processed gold.
A NECKLACE ASSEMBLAGE from a small Anglo–Saxon cemetery in Hardingstone (Northamptonshire), was discovered during excavations in the 1960s, but until now has remained unpublished. It is an example of a type commonly found in the distinctive well-furnished female graves of the later 7th century in England and is constituted from beads and pendants, some of unusual type. This paper investigates this discovery, individually assessing the component parts of the necklace and presenting qualitative compositional analysis of the silver and glass used in their manufacture. As a case study, the Hardingstone necklace provides an opportunity to explore the meaning of these kinds of jewellery item and to better understand the prominent role of the women who wore them in 7th-century Anglo-Saxon society.
The Staffordshire Hoard is the largest ever find of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork. The collection comprises many hundreds of objects, in approximately 3900 fragments. Most objects are fittings from swords, but there are also fragments from at least one helmet, and a small but significant collection of Christian objects.
An initial study of 16 gold objects from the collection suggested that some form of deliberately induced depletion gilding had taken place to remove both silver and copper from the surface of the metal (Blakelock, In press). Subsequently, both surface and quantitative core alloy SEM-EDX analysis was undertaken on a further 114 Hoard objects. Over 222 individual components (i.e. different parts of objects) were analysed during this study.
This is the largest quantitative survey of Anglo-Saxon gold and, contrary to expectations, no reliable relationship was found between the fineness of alloy used and object date, although the low copper content is consistent with the use of recycled coinage as a source of gold. However, over 100 components were judged to be deliberately depleted in silver at their surface which, it is argued, was the result of a deliberate and probably widespread Anglo-Saxon workshop practice. Previously unrecognised, this involved the depletion gilding of sheet gold to create contrast between decorative components, as well as to enhance colour. Furthermore, in the light of the identification of this systematic surface enrichment, similar approaches should be considered to investigate goldsmithing practices in other cultures and time frames.
This article investigates the Anglo-Saxon style from several angles: as part of a complex artistic tradition, and - despite limitations - as a tool in securing the chronological framework for material culture. Style study provides an unexpectedly revealing window onto the Anglo-Saxon world. The Saxon Relief Style overlapped with the relatively short lifespan of the Quoit-Brooch Style. Style 1 played a part in expressing local cultural identity. Carolingian influences increased under Alfred. By the end of the ninth century, the influence of Carolingian models becomes ever more visible. Winchester was a great focus of patronage and production in the arts of tenth and eleventh centuries. Throughout the tenth century, Scandinavian styles had been influential on metalwork and sculpture in areas of Viking settlement in the north; they entered the repertoire of southern England. The Bayeux Tapestry is Anglo-Saxon in style and workmanship.
Whether the terms Final Phase or Conversion Period should be assigned to the mid Saxon period, as implied in the heading of this article, is open to question. This article highlights the continuity of early Saxon furnished burial and use the term Final Phase to represent burial practices that have their origins towards the end of the sixth century and disappear early in the eighth century. The initial finding that women buried with 'classic' Final Phase dress fittings seem to belong to a single generation centred on the third quarter of the seventh century. For the Anglo-Saxon political elite, a recently established norm was barrow burial accompanied by the symbols of power and of the lifestyle of the warrior caste. Cremation was already going out of fashion during the sixth century and, where it survived, conversion to Christianity assured its disappearance.
In the normal course of its monetary use and circulation a coin can be modified in various ways. Political authorities remelt, restrike and at times overstrike coins; dishonest users clip or otherwise lighten them for profit. Circulation wears them down, and they are frequently cut or scratched to test their value. Modifications such as segmentation and scratching can also be a means to remove coins from circulation, and indeed it can be argued that it is the case with most modified coins. These objects offer an interesting outlook on the use of coins not only as a means of exchange, but also as objects.
The debasement of Merovingian gold coins is well known. Specific gravity measurements realized by ODDY et al. allow to follow the decrease in fineness with some reliability. But the process of this debasement itself had not been researched before J.-N. Barrandon undertook proton activation analyses on royal gold coins from Marseille and Aries in the BnF. We are publishing them here and add comments dedicated to his memory. A few supplementary data obtained through LA-ICP-MS are added. The lead/silver curve shows that silver was added to the alloy quite early. The platinum traces are intermediate between the higher values measured on the contemporaneous Byzantine coins in Constantinople and Carthage and the lower values of the Visigothic coins. Their increase in the first half of the seventh century could be related with an input of Byzantine gold.
An archaeometric study was carried out on 40 gold leaf tesserae from mosaics in Italy dated 1st to the 9th century AD. Glass layers and gold leaf were both analysed by X-ray microanalysis. The main aim was the identification of the composition of the glass and of the gold leaf, in order to assess the variations in composition and nature of the tesserae in the examined period. The analytical results show that the tesserae were obtained with natron type glass; three compositional groups were identified, each characterized by a specific colour. The coexistence of colourless (antimony-manganese as decolourizer) and naturally coloured (manganese as decolourizer) glass in each mosaic suggests the simultaneous use of the two materials, probably related to aesthetic choices. The analyses of the gold leaves indicate the use of pure gold or of gold-silver alloys. The good matches between the compositions of the gold leaves and the analyses of contemporary gold coins in the late antique and byzantine samples (3rd-9th c.) suggest that the leaves were made by beating circulating gold coins. This, in some cases, can help the dating of the tesserae and a more precise information on the type of glass used in this period.
The Potential Importance of the detailed measurement and study of the proportions of different elements in metal alloys used for early Anglo-Saxon artefacts has been appreciated for several years now. Such analyses add, for instance, to the direct observations of early Anglo-Saxon metalworking practice that can be made, and have a contribution to make to attempts to construct absolute and relative chronologies. Two ranges of alloys in particular have been profitably studied: alloys predominantly of gold, of the late sixth and seventh centuries, in which a progressive decline in the gold content allows dating estimates to be made on the strength of the results of metallurgical analysis (Hawkes, Merrick and Metcalf 1966; cf. Brown and Schweizer 1973 for the application of such results), and the predominantly copper alloys that are characteristic of the diverse and plentiful range of artefacts—particularly dress-jewellery—found in Anglo-Saxon graves of the Migration Period, dating from the fifth century to some point in the second half of the sixth. Study of these copper alloys has been organized in terms of particular artefact-types—for instance studies by Peter Northover and Tania Dickinson of saucer brooches and by Catherine Mortimer of cruciform brooches (Mortimer 1990: the unpublished results of Northover and Dickinson's earlier work are reported in this thesis)—and in the form of comprehensive surveys of the material recovered from individual cemeteries, such as Spong Hill, Norfolk (Wardley in Hills, Penn and Rickett 1984, 38–40), Watchfield, Oxfordshire, and Lechlade, Gloucestershire (Mortimer, Pollard and Scull 1986; Mortimer 1988).
This chapter focuses on the applications of X-ray fluorescence for the study and conservation of cultural heritage. X-ray fluorescence has been used for some fifty years in the study and conservation of archaeological and historical objects yet, given the number of papers that are still published in this field, its capability of stimulating the creativity of scientists, conservators, archaeologists, and art-historians is far from being exhausted. X-ray fluorescence has long been used for the investigation of archaeological and historical materials. The physical principles of X-ray fluorescence are simple and well known involving electronic transitions to be be induced in the inner shells of the atoms by electromagnetic radiation or charged particles of suitable energy, such transitions result in the emission of X-rays whose energy and intensity are related to the type and abundances of the atoms concerned. Due to the attenuation of the matter, only the X-rays emitted in the first layers under the surface can reach the detector. This chapter also aims at reviewing part of the considerable number of papers published so far with a special focus on the relationship between non-destructive and quantitative analysis. The criteria used by scientists to design the investigations are also considered, and examples are shown in which similar objects are approached, from the analytical point of view, in a totally different way.
Modern analytical methods perfected during the past twenty years, including emission spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence, neutron
activation and other nuclear techniques, have made a vital contribution to the study of gold antiquities. As a result of the
pioneering work of recent years, most publications of new finds of gold coins or jewellery now include analytical data.
ABSTRACTS
Two possible sources of error in the measurement and interpretation of the specific gravities of gold coins are investigated. First, the effect of the presence of copper was measured and found to be more significant than previously thought. It is shown that the presence of 5% of copper in a gold‐silver alloy results in a measured gold content which is 3.3% too low when the coin is analysed by the specific gravity method. Secondly, the importance of cleaning the coins before measuring the specific gravity is also demonstrated.
This article reviews some of the applications of physics to the solution of archaeological problems. The use of magnetic, resistivity and electromagnetic surveying techniques for the location of buried features is described. Various methods of age determination are outlined while the problems associated with radiocarbon dating of organic material and thermoluminescent dating of pottery are discussed in detail. The techniques, including petrological examination, chemical analysis and isotopic analysis, employed in the physical examination of archaeological artefacts are described. Examples of the application of these techniques in establishing the source of the raw materials used in pottery, metal and stone implements and in elucidating the techniques of manufacture of pottery and metal objects are also given.
Nothing is more characteristic of the Dark Ages than the ease with which the barbarians assimilated Latin culture. Within a century of Augustine's mission to the pagan English, ‘a barbarous, fierce and unbelieving nation’ who ‘paralysed [him] with terror’, Ceolfrith had attempted to make Jarrow a second Vivarium and Northumbria could boast scriptoria with an uncial hand superior to the contemporary products of Rome herself. No less striking is the career of a barbarian prince like Cædwalla, who emerged from the forests of Wessex on a pilgrimage to Rome, where he was baptized in St Peter's and had his epitaph written in classical metres by the archbishop of Milan. Yet the Christianity which thus introduced the Saxons to Mediterranean classicism did not cut them off from their native cultural inheritance. The Northumbria which produced the Codex Amiatinus was also the home of Cædmon and of the Lindisfarne Gospels, whose rich mixture of Roman and barbaric elements exemplifies the Saxons’ success in turning vernacular poetry and insular art to Christian themes.
Although it is a precious and rare material testament to the introduction of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England, the Liudhard medalet (pl. I) has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. It is scarcely known to art historians. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the emblem on the reverse of the issue, and to offer an hypothesis on its meaning. Discovered ‘some years’ before 1844 with other gold coins – looped for suspension as if for a necklace of medalets – and jewellery in or near the churchyard of St Martin's, Canterbury, and published in 1845, the medalet recently has been convincingly assigned to a group of grave goods deposited c. 580–90. Besides the coin in question, the group included an Italian tremissis of Justin II, a Germanic tremissis of unsure origin, a Merovingian solidus struck by Leudulf at Ivegio vico and two tremisses from southern France, the first from Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, the second from Agen. Today these objects are in Liverpool, and Philip Grierson has persuasively argued for the inclusion of a Merovingian tremissis in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, as once forming part of the deposit. Most likely all the coins of the Canterbury group were issued during the second half of the sixth century.
The Monkton brooch was found in 1971 when mechanical trench digging disturbed a large AngloSaxon cemetery north of Monkton village on Thanet, east Kent. It is a large composite disc brooch made of electrum, silver, and gilded bronze, set with garnets, blue glass, and shell. Consideration of its design, construction, and very pale, silver-debased, gold suggests that it was made no earlier than c. A.D. 640—50 and is amongst the latest of Kentish composite brooches. © 1974, The Society of Antiquaries of London. All rights reserved.
Thirty-four gold solidi coins and two pairs of gold/jewel earrings were discovered at an archaeological site in Jordan, Tell Nimrin. The coins have stamped images of six late Roman/early Byzantine emperors who reigned from 346 AD to 518 AD. These objects were analyzed by X-ray radiography, SEM/EDS and density measurements to find the gold content for comparison with other coins ofthat period to support their authenticity and to see whether debasement of coinage had occurred. The average surface gold content was found by EDS to be 98.1 wt %--typical of the period--but the bulk content calculated from density values was 1 to 3 wt % lower. The reason offered is that when a molten gold-copper or gold-silver alloy solidifies, the region in contact with the blank coin mold freezes first and is gold-enriched. Small “silvery” specks were observed on the obverse (”heads”) side of several coins and found by EDS to be Os-Ir-Ru alloys, which come from placer mining and indicate that the gold also came from placer mining.
ABSTRACTS
This paper discusses a systematic difference between the results found when one series of Dark‐Age gold coins were analysed both by neutron activation and by specific gravity analysis and when a second series of similar coins was analysed by the Oxford Milliprobe and by specific gravity. No reason is given for this systematic difference, although there is evidence that all three methods are slightly in error, two of them giving results for gold which are too high and the specific gravity method giving results which are too low.
ABSTRACTS
X‐ray fluorescence analysis of 30 pieces of Anglo Saxon jewellery, from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, is followed by a comparison with similar results obtained from contemporary coinage. The standards of fineness for the coinage are applied to the jewellery and used to date its manufacture. An appendix describes repeatanalyses of some coins which, at first, had widely differing results from XRF and specific gravity methods.
An invaluable field textbook, Objects examines nine detailed case studies to provide a brilliantly clear and comprehensible guide to the different methods and approaches (cultural, forensic, and technical) which can and have been used to study ancient artefacts.
From the Bayeux Tapestry to small medieval brass pins, medieval wooden doors to Saxon jewellery, Chris Caple’s integral text deals with a full range of materials and clearly and simply explains key scientific techniques, technology, anthropological jargon and historical approaches.
Key demonstrations include:
how information from objects builds into a picture of the ancient society that made and used it
the commonly used scientific techniques for object analysis
how and why object typologies work
how cultural and economic factors as well as the material properties influences what objects are made of
how simple observation of an object can build its biography.
Revealing answers to crucial questions – such as: Can DNA be obtained from objects? Why do people x-ray ancient artefacts? Can you determine the source of metal objects from their trace elements? – Objects is an absolutely essential text for students of archaeology, museum studies, and conservation.
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