Development of a multi-isotopic (Pb, Fe, Cu) analytical protocol in gold matrices for ancient coin provenance studies

Abstract

The elemental analysis of ancient gold items in the context of provenance studies in archaeology and history may characterize metallic stocks and highlight metal circulation in a given space and time; however, they cannot point to a specific geological province and/or ore. In contrast, isotope analysis may offer valuable insight into provenance studies. For instance, lead isotopes may provide relations with the geodynamic provinces of the host mineralizations and some insight into their timing. Iron and copper isotopes may give information on the ore type, i.e., supergene versus hydrothermal or igneous. We thus adapted a single column separative chemistry, initially intended for silicate rocks, for ancient gold matrices to recover purified fractions of Pb, Fe and Cu based on anionic exchange chromatography. Isotopic measurements of these elements on new home-made gold standards, as well as on ancient gold test coins, were carried out using Multi-Collector – Inductively Coupled Plasma – Mass Spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS). Our results show that it is possible to obtain precise and accurate measurements of Pb, Cu and Fe isotope compositions in gold matrices reflecting various elemental compositions. We characterized our gold test coins with the following uncertainties: ±0.036 on 208Pb/204Pb, ±0.016 on 207Pb/204Pb, ±0.019 on 206Pb/204Pb, ±0.00041 on 208Pb/206Pb and ±0.00006 on 207Pb/206Pb (2SD; n = 14); ±0.047‰ for δ57FeIRMM14 (2SE; n = 15) and ±0.043‰ for δ65CuSRM976 (2SE; n = 12). These uncertainties are in good agreement with the long-term (>1.5 years) reproducibilities (2SD) estimated in the course of this study on the basis of repeated measurement of in-house standards. The potential of these new tracers in addressing archaeological and historical questions, such as the provenance of ancient gold coins, is then emphasized. The combination of Pb, Fe and Cu isotopes with gold chemistry appears particularly promising.

Graphical abstract: Development of a multi-isotopic (Pb, Fe, Cu) analytical protocol in gold matrices for ancient coin provenance studies

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
15 Sep 2023
Accepted
29 Feb 2024
First published
07 Mar 2024

J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2024, Advance Article

Development of a multi-isotopic (Pb, Fe, Cu) analytical protocol in gold matrices for ancient coin provenance studies

L. de Palaminy, F. Poitrasson, S. Baron, M. Blet-Lemarquand and L. Perrière, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2024, Advance Article , DOI: 10.1039/D3JA00312D

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements