Study of the provenance of Belgian Merovingian garnets by PIXE at IPNAS cyclotron

Study of medieval glass fragments from Savona (Italy) and their relation with the glass produced in Altare

“…The current fluence was monitored using an annular particle detector placed inside the extraction nozzle. This signal is proportional to the current that reaches the sample (Mathis et al, 2008(Mathis et al, , 2010. PIXE signals were collected by means of two X-ray detectors; a Si(Li) detector (e2V Scientific Instruments, UK) with an ultrathin polymer window, dedicated to the matrix signal, and an Ultra LEGe detector (Canberra, USA), having a 5 mm thick Ge crystal, with Bewindow and 50 mm Al filter, used for trace element detection.…”

Targeting Ion Beam Analysis techniques for gold artefacts

“…Most of the PIXE users working in the field of archaeometry select protons as incident particles in a non-vacuum geometry and tune their accelerator above 3 MeV (Calvo del Castillo et al, 2008;Bugoi et al, 2008;Migliori et al, 2008;Quarta et al, 2008;Mathis et al, 2008). Their main arguments for this are:…”

Gemstones From Vigna Barberini at the Palatine Hill (Rome, Italy)*

“…Comprehensive studies on garnets have been performed on those found in Paris (Farges 1998; Calligaro et al . 2002), in Belgium (Mathis et al . 2008) and in the United Kingdom (Bimson et al .…”

“…Despite their importance, in terms of preciousness, aesthetic properties, mysterious virtues, commercial trade and social destination, gemstone studies remain still largely unaddressed. Comprehensive studies on garnets have been performed on those found in Paris (Farges 1998;Calligaro et al 2002), in Belgium (Mathis et al 2008) and in the United Kingdom (Bimson et al 1982). A large database of garnet chemical composition (1290 garnets on 131 Merovingian artefacts found in France) was provided by Calligaro et al (2006-7) for provenance investigations.…”

“…On the contrary, the list of techniques used for gemstone characterization is rather long. Proton-induced X-ray emission (PIXE), sometimes combined with proton-induced gamma-ray emission (PIGE) or with Raman micro-spectrometry, has frequently been used (Xin Pei et al 1993;Calligaro et al 1998Calligaro et al , 1999Calligaro et al , 2000Calligaro et al , 2001Calligaro et al , 2002Calligaro et al , 2006Farges 1998;Yu et al 2000;Guerra et al 2007;Mathis et al 2008). Portable PIXE-alpha and XRF spectrometers have been specifically tested on gems (Pappalardo et al 2005).…”