In this paper we will present the elemental analysis results on silver coins and artefacts using Ion Beam Analysis. We will explore the challenges of applying non-destructive methods on the surfaces of archaeological metals. We will compare three methods of analysis, namely PIXE, SEM-EDS and XRF and present how we resolved problems of surface alterations. The results obtained have a great...
Neutron activation analysis was used to evaluate the composition of 98 pottery samples excavated from the Oc Eo site in An Giang province. The possibility of provenance and technology of ancient pottery was investigated using Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering (AHC) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in combination with archaeological data. The AHC dendrogram identified two primary...
The woodblock of the Nguyen dynasty of Vietnam is one of the World Documentary Heritage recognized by UNESCO. Fungi and termites play a considerable role in the deterioration of these woodblocks. Both chemical and physical methods have been developed for treatment and restoration, and their results are not as expected. Based on the merit of low-energy X-rays, such as their low shielding...
More recently, ancient gold sites have been discovered in many European countries and are not limited to other parts of the world. The earliest gold artifacts were dated to approximately 4,600 BP. Apart from date determination; a number of ancient gold artifacts were analyzed using available technology to address variety of questions. In general, the best practice on ancient artifact analysis...
The study the ancient Phoenician cult place of Kharayeb, in the rural hinterland of Tyre, southern of Lebanon, dated to the Iron Age and Hellenistic periods is particularly helpful in evaluating the complexity and variability of the so called “Hellenism” and of “Greek cultural influences” in the Phoenician world. PIXE analytical technique was used to characterize the elemental composition of...
Dahwa is an Early Bronze Age (EBA) (ca. 2600-2000BC) site located in the northern Al-Batinah region in Northern Oman. It has since 2014 been excavated by the Archaeology Department at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. Five relatively large sites concentrated in one area around the modern village of Dahwa were uncovered, marked as DH1 and DH5-DH8. Two of these sites have been subject to...
