Gold cultural heritage objects: a review of studies of provenance and manufacturing technologies

摘要

An overview of the use of the elemental composition of gold in the study of manufacturing technologies for objects as well as of the provenance of the metal is given. Depending on the objects, techniques based either on atomic physics or on nuclear physics and mass spectrometry are required to answer the questions surrounding the process of metalworking in the past. Several archaeological examples covering different periods of time and involving diverse analytical techniques are presented here. With those examples we illustrate the main research questions on precious objects and coins and show how far the elemental analysis of the objects can reveal the way they were made and provide information on the origin of the gold.