THE CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF ANCIENT COINS

The determination of the chemical composition of ancient coins may offer valuable information to archeologists, historians and numismatists, mainly regarding their manufacturing technology, age, minting places, and authenticity. The composition of the major elements can provide useful information about the history and the economy of a city, a kingdom or an empire, for a specific period of time, and also about the materials technology applied for the production of metal alloys. In the case of trace elements, their detection or not in the coins under examination may provide indications about the source of the ores (determination of the metal’s provenance) and the manufacturing procedure. Moreover, the composition of ancient coins can assist the discrimination between genuine and forged coins. Even though the analytical studies of coins have been already carried out for more than 50 years, the relatively recent development of non-destructive analytical techniques has opened new potentials for the analysis of coins with no or minimal damage caused, since museum curators and collectors do not allow any permanent damage to the coins, even of those in poor condition.

In this paper, the most common techniques which are used or have been used for the analysis and the determination of the chemical composition of ancient coins, along with their advantages and limitations, will be presented, without providing much information about the methodological aspects of the techniques.

To read the complete article, see:
Analytical methods for the determination of the chemical composition of ancient coins (http://kyprioscharacter.eie.gr/en/scientific-texts/details/numismatics/analytical-methods-for-determination-of-chemical-composition-of-ancient-coins)

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