About “green niello” in the decor of encolpion crosses of Rus from the finds in Suzdal Opolye

Ancient Russian Niello: Experimental Modeling and Research of the Microstructure

“…-The brittleness of the investigated niello compounds does not allow creating a niello pattern on the product by driving the stripes of niello into the grooves as suggested by some researchers [10,11].…”

“…Microsamples of niello were collected from areas with impaired niello inlay. The elemental composition of the metal and niello decor of these crosses had been studied earlier at the Kurchatov Institute [10]. Based on the available data, two model compositions of niello were made.…”

“…In order to obtain the metal base of the model samples, a copper alloy was prepared with the addition of Zn, Pb, and Sn (Cu 84.3%, Pb 3.5%, Sn 1.2%, Zn 10.8%) close in composition to the copper alloy of crosses C-12 and C-34 [10]. The ingot was cast into a mold in the same furnace as the niello, rolled by rollers to flatten it, and divided into small plates.…”

“…An extensive amount of foreign literature is devoted to the problems of the technology of niello production. In the 1980-1990s, special research programs were launched to study archaeological objects from different eras to determine the niello technology and the stages of its evolution [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19].…”