Scholars have long discussed the introduction and spread of iron metallurgy in different civilizations. The sporadic use of iron has been reported in the Eastern Mediterranean area from the late Neolithic period to the Bronze Age. Despite the rare existence of smelted iron, it is generally assumed that early iron objects were produced from meteoritic iron. Nevertheless, the methods of working the metal, its use, and diffusion are contentious issues compromised by lack of detailed analysis. Since its discovery in 1925, the meteoritic origin of the iron dagger blade from the sarcophagus of the ancient Egyptian King Tutankhamun (14th C. BCE) has been the subject of debate and previous analyses yielded controversial results. We show that the composition of the blade (Fe plus 10.8 wt% Ni and 0.58 wt% Co), accurately determined through portable x‐ray fluorescence spectrometry, strongly supports its meteoritic origin. In agreement with recent results of metallographic analysis of ancient iron artifacts from Gerzeh, our study confirms that ancient Egyptians attributed great value to meteoritic iron for the production of precious objects. Moreover, the high manufacturing quality of Tutankhamun's dagger blade, in comparison with other simple‐shaped meteoritic iron artifacts, suggests a significant mastery of ironworking in Tutankhamun's time.
For the first time the kinetic emission properties of commercially available cadmium-based pigments were studied. For analysis, a streak camera-based photoluminescence device was used with a temporal resolution ranging from ps to ms, considering the emission from both the band edge and the first deep trap state. Band edge emission shows a rapid picosecond lifetime strictly related to pigment composition, with cadmium sulphide pigments decaying more rapidly than those based on cadmium sulphoselenides. The trap state emission lifetime is on the order of tens of microseconds and is uncorrelated with pigment composition. In addition, a high dependence of spectral and lifetime emission properties on excitation irradiance has been observed, as carrier recombination in cadmium pigments is highly influenced by electron trapping. All this information provides insight into the photo-physical properties of these widely employed modern pigments, which highlights how luminescence measurements are useful for discriminating among cadmium pigments.
CRONO is a new portable and easy reconfigurable macro X-ray fluorescence scanner based on the energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence technique, which has been specifically designed for in-situ, fast, and non-invasive elemental mapping of polychrome surfaces. The main components are fully integrated into the detection head which includes an X-ray tube, a large area silicon drift detector, a microscope camera, two pointing lasers, a Helium gas purging set, and fast acquisition electronics. This very compact detection head is mounted on motorized stages (with a linear speed up to 45 mm/s) that allow the scanning of areas up to 450 × 600 mm 2 . Three collimators (0.5, 1, and 2-mm diameter) are software selectable to obtain different spot sizes on the sample. The typical measurement time for the full scanned area ranges from 1 h with the 2-mm collimator to about 9 h with the 0.5-mm collimator using a dwell time of 30 ms. Technical details and achievable performances of the instrument are presented and discussed along with an example of application which illustrates the value of the developed instrument in the investigation of paintings.
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