A compositional study of a museum jewellery collection (7th–1st BC) by means of a portable XRF spectrometer A.G. Karydas a, * , D. Kotzamani b , R. Bernard c , J.N. Barrandon d , Ch. Zarkadas a a Laboratory for Material Analysis, Institute of Nuclear Physics, NCSR ‘‘Demokritos’’, Aghia Paraskevi, Athens 15310, Greece b Benaki Museum, 1 Koumbari Street, Athens 10674, Greece c Unit e mixte de Physique CNRS/Thales Domaine de Corbeville, 91404, Orsay, France d Centre de Recherche Ernest-Babelon, CNRS, 45071, Orl eans, France Received 21 October 2003; received in revised form 12 February 2004 Abstract Within the framework of the project ‘‘Jewelmed’’ (ICA3-1999-10020), the chemical composition of 34 gold and four silver jewels was examined. These jewels belong to the Benaki museum’s collection in Athens, Greece and are dating from the 7th to the 1st century BC. The compositional analysis of the jewels was performed by means of a ‘‘home- made’’ portable X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometer. The XRF results have shown that the gold jewels can be categorized in two groups, which include artifacts made by native and by high purity gold, respectively. For the silver jewels the results have provided interesting information regarding the manufacturing technology, the authenticity of the jewels and the raw materials used. The potential and the limitations of the XRF technique, applied in the chemical analysis of archaeological metal artifacts, are also discussed. Ó 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Gold–silver jewellery; Ancient metallurgy; XRF; Portable instrumentation; Quantitative analysis 1. Introduction The modern approach for a complete charac- terization of cultural materials (artifacts, monu- ments) involves the combined use of various analytical methods and techniques. However, in some cases (as it happens for example with metal alloys or glasses) the determination of the materi- als chemical composition (in major, minor and if possible in some trace elements) is of primary importance since it provides data for an initial grouping or classification of the analysed objects, apart of their typological/archaeological charac- teristics. Moreover, for the archaeologists, cons- ervators and archaeometrical scientists the determination of the chemical composition may help to elucidate the early evolution of manufac- ture technology and the geographical spread of this knowledge at ancient time, especially when the analysed materials originate from different loca- tions. On the other hand, when we are discussing * Corresponding author. Tel.: +30-210-6503523/651-8770; fax: +30-210-6511215. E-mail address: karydas@inp.demokritos.gr (A.G. Kary- das). 0168-583X/$ - see front matter Ó 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.nimb.2004.02.034 Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 226 (2004) 15–28 www.elsevier.com/locate/nimb