ARCHAEOMETALLURGICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF ANCIENT GOLD ARTIFACTS FROM ROMANIAN MUSEUMS USING XRF, MICRO-PIXE AND MICRO-SR-XRF METHODS

Trace elements are more significant for provenance of archaeological metallic artifacts than the main components. For gold, the most promising elements are Platinum Group Elements (PGE), Sn, Te, Sb, Hg, Pb. To authenticate twelve Dacian gold bracelets and twenty Dacian gold coins (staters) type Koson was necessary to identify in their composition Transylvanian gold fingerprints Sn, Sb and Te. After an XRF examination of the artifacts, several small fragments from them and some natural Transylvanian native gold samples were studied using micro-PIXE at Legnaro National Laboratory, Italy and using micro-SR-XRF at ANKA Synchrotron, Karlsruhe, Germany.