×

Carpathian Journal of Earth and Environmental Sciences

An International Peer-Reviewed Open Access Journal

Indexed in Scopus SCIE (Web of Science) Crossref GeoRef

« Back

ARTICLE IN » Volume 11, 2016 - Number 1

MINERALOGICAL AND PHYSICO-CHEMICAL DATA REGARDING THE BRONZES FROM SOME ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES FROM ROMANIA



Monica MACOVEI & Gheorghe C. POPESCU
Faculty of Geology and Geophysics, University of Bucharest, Bd. Bălcescu, no.1, Bucharest, Romania,
ghpop@geo.edu.ro, macoveimonica@yahoo.com

Reading time: | words
Download PDF document Downloads: 3790

Abstract

This study investigates bronze from archaeological sites from Arad area (RO), Șpălnaca archeological site (Alba County, RO) and Drajna de Jos (Prahova County, RO) and tries to make a link with geological sources of raw material. The samples referred to in this article are from two museums located in Romania. This study presents results of a quantitative analysis carried out with X-ray fluorescence (XRF) combined with optical observations made on the artifact’s alloy. In addition, the analytical data from the ”SAM” project - Germany, 1968 and previous isotopic analyses of stable lead isotope aided in this research also. Romania has no proven exploitable occurrences of tin and previous research has demonstrated that foreign material - tin (possibly from Erzgebirge-Germany) was used to manufacture the bronze alloy in the Bronze Age. The current study tries to establish that material from local sources has been added to the alloy. Our research showed that the Romanian archaeo-bronzes (bronzes found in archaeological sites) are considered complex tin bronzes with cadmium, lead, silicon, iron, nickel, arsenic, antimony, presenting a notable heterogeneity. Local sources of the copper could have been Apuseni Mountains, Banatitic area, Mehedinți Mountains, Leaota Mountains and East Făgăraș area. Beside Cu and Sn, the archaeo - bronzes from the Arad area contain Cd, Pb and Ni and rarely Cr, Si, As, Fe, Sb, Co, Al and those from Drajna archaeological site have Cd, Sb, Ni, As and Pb. For the first area the source may be considered Apuseni Mts. (Brusturi – Luncșoara, Băița Bihor and Highiș District) and for the second one Leaota Mts. and Eastern Făgărași Mts. (Nimaia – Bârsa Fierului Metallogenetic Sector).
Keywords:
  • archaeo-bronzes
  • South
  • Apuseni
  • Banatitic
  • area
  • South
  • Carpathians
  • Mehedinți
  • Mountains
  • Leaota
  • Mountains
  • East
  • Făgăraș
  • area
  • complex
  • tin
  • bronze

Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of CJEES and/or the editor(s). CJEES and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

© 2016 by the author(s). Licensee CJEES, Carpathian Association of Environment and Earth Sciences. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

How to cite

Monica MACOVEI & Gheorghe C. POPESCU (2016). MINERALOGICAL AND PHYSICO-CHEMICAL DATA REGARDING THE BRONZES FROM SOME ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES FROM ROMANIA

Google Scholar
Loading...

Checking for open citations...