Ion beam analysis of golden threads from Romanian medieval textiles

Scientific Investigation of Metal Threads from Medieval Gold Brocaded Velvets by Modern Microanalytical Techniques

“…In complementarity to PIXE, the RBS measurements contributed to improve the knowledge on the metal threads technologies of production, by providing information on their micro-chemical structure and the thickness of the gilding coating [11]. By evaluating the RBS spectra, it was observed that gold is separated from the bulk silver by an intermediate layer resulting from the atomic diffusion of the silver into the gold layer, which led to the conclusion that the gold may have been applied on silver either by thermal diffusion ("diffusion bonding"), or by hot mercury amalgamation ("fire gilding").…”

Advanced Micro-chemical Investigation of Golden Threads from Romanian Byzantine Embroideries by Micro-Particle Induced X-ray Emission (micro-PIXE)

“…In the strips P3 and P4, high amounts of lead of 1.08 and 0.84% was measured, which indicated that different technologies of production may have been used. It could be assumed that these samples may belong to a different older period of time [4,17] and have a different provenance.…”

“…The process of restoring and preserving cultural heritage artifacts needs knowledge of cultural, social and religious life in different old periods of time, requiring multiple and advanced analysis techniques to answer the questions raised by these types of objects [1]. Technical and characterization studies on metal threads from Romanian historical textiles by using modern analytical techniques have been done in our country for more than 15 years [2][3][4][5]. In our study, golden threads from two twin liturgical embroideries: Epitrachelion/ Inv.…”

Spanish and Portuguese Gilding Threads: Characterization Using Microscopic Techniques

“…Microscopy techniques and microanalyses using optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) combined with energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS) and wavelength-dispersive spectrometry are excellent tools for studying materials from cultural heritage (Alves et al, 2013; Kim et al, 2013; Ravines et al, 2016). These techniques have mostly been used for the characterization of gilded threads (Hacke et al, 2004; Karatzani, 2008; Rezic et al, 2010; Balta et al, 2015). Thanks to these experiments, the identification of the metal and fiber substrates and the determination of the dimensions of the metal wrapping have been possible (Shibayama et al, 2015).…”

“…The depth ranges between 0.16 and 3.1 µ m as a function of the voltage between 5 and 30 kV, respectively (Wassilkowska et al, 2014). Other sensitive techniques such as particle-induced X-ray emission, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, secondary-ion mass spectrometry, and laser-inductively coupled plasma/mass spectrometry are less frequently used to determine the composition of multilayered metal threads at trace-level sensitivity (Rezic et al, 2010; Balta et al, 2015).…”