Chapter 4 THE COMPOSITION OF GOLD FROM THE ANCIENT MINING DISTRICT OF VERESPAT MONT ANA, ROMANIA A. HAUPTMANN TH. REHREN DMT Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Institut für Archäometallurgie Lohrheidstr. 57 44791 Bochum Germany E. PERNICKA Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik Postfach 10 39 80 69029 Beideiberg Germany ABSTRACT. The gold deposits of Verespatak belong to the famous "Golden Quadrangle" (Romania). They have probably been exploited since ancient times. In order to obtain more detailed compositional information, native gold samples were analyzed by WDS and NAA. The results show that the gold from Verespatak has typically very high silver contents in the order of 20-25% and also contains tellu- rium and other trace elements in the matrix and bound to mineral inclusions. Melting experiments un- der oxidizing and reducing conditions showed that copper and tellurium contained in the gold were hardly affected. Thus copper contents ofup to 0.4% and tellurium contents ofup to 0.2% can occur in this gold type. Such high tellurium contents have so far not been found in prehistoric gold objects from this region. 1. lntroduction and Geology The mining district of Verespatak, or, as it is called today in Romania, Montana, is lo- cated in the northern area of the Transylvanian Ore Mountains, in the Carpathian Basin, and is also known as the "Golden Quadrangle". Without doubt it was exploited in antiquity and belongs among the richest gold occurrences in Europe. The area is built up from a sequence of (sub-)volcanic rocksthat originated during the final stage of the Alpine magmatism during the Neogene(= younger Tertiary period). Volcanic activity of predominantly andesitic character led to the formation of numerous porphyry cop- per deposits very rich in gold and silver and other non-ferrous metals (Ianovici and 1982). These ore deposits are located within brecciated volcanic pipes and intrusions, altered by hydrothermal activity. The native gold and gold-silver ores are concentrated in the oxida- tion and the secondary enrichment zones near the surface. These parts of the ore deposits have been exploited almost quantitatively in earlier times. Gold mirring in the Transylvanian Ore Mountains continued until the middle of this century (Roman et al. 1982). In particular the area of Verespatak was rich in primary and secondary gold deposits, where gold mirring was going on in the Csetate massif near the large fault pit at Verespatak. The Csetate is the most impressive example of how an ore deposit was ran- 369 G. Morteani and J. P. Northover (eds.), Prehistoric Gold in Europe, 369-381. © 1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.