Archeometallurgical Studies with a Movable EDXRF Spectrometer on Messenian Gold. The methodological approach

With the permission of the Archaeological society of Athens and on the behalf of the European project XRF-ART, that is developing a new x-ray spectrometer system devoted to archaeometric analysis, in the last few months, three Archaeometric campaigns were performed on gold artifacts excavated in the Messenia region. These archaeometallurgical campaigns are part of a project leaded by G. Styl Korres, in collaboration with a group of the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, which aim is to increase the knowledge, as far as archaeometallurgical aspects are concerned, on materials dig-up in the early ‘50 and ’60 from the Messenian area. These campaigns were mainly dedicated to the gold artifacts present at the museums of Athens, Olimpia, Kalamata, Chora and Pylos. Our main goal was to obtain a statistical significant set of data making a large number of measurement either in the same artifact (when large enough) as on many artifacts. More then 500 artifacts were studied. The analysis were achieved with a non destructive movable system; non destructive means that the artifacts are not damaged at all, and movable means that the analyzing instrument was taken to the precious artifacts rather than the opposite. This last characteristic is due to the significant improvement, occurred in the last years, of the scientific instruments involved in such a movable system. Part of the obtained results are shown and discussed in the present work. The results of the statistical analysis of data are also shown.