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Average and core silver content of ancient-debased coins via neutron diffraction and specific gravity

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Abstract

The measurement of the fineness of debased ancient silver coins has proven to be a very difficult issue, which has been studied for a long time. In this paper, this subject is analysed, and the various consequences of the silver surface enrichment (SSE) are discussed exploiting the most recent investigations. A new model is proposed for the complex object that is an ancient-debased silver coin, based on the silver profiles measured on some sectioned specimens. The model is applied to a sample of 43 coins, mainly Roman victoriati, Cisalpine and Illyrian drachms (from late III to I century B.C.). The coins are investigated in two different ways: neutron diffraction (ND) and specific gravity (SG). The results of the two measurements are combined via the proposed model to provide a more complete numismatic information of the original fineness of the monetary alloy. As a result, a relation between SSE thickness and SG is derived, which, for these coinages, allows to estimate the original alloy silver content from a simple SG measurement; the same method can be used to study other debased coinages, provided that all the procedure (ND and SG) is applied.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Science and Technology Facilities Council (Cooperation Agreement No. 06/20018 between CNR and STFC and INES BeamTime Application-RB1262011) for the beamtime allocation. Dr. Federico Barello is kindly acknowledged for allowing the measurements of the coins of the Museo di Antichità of Torino and for being available to carry them to the UK. P.D. thanks Dr. Ronaldo Bertozzi for donating to him the two sacrificial coins analysed both in this paper and in Moreno-Suárez et al. (2015). We thank Ana Isabel Moreno-Suárez for providing the Ag profiles of sample no. 2 and Mr. D. Hook for providing the SGs of three quadrigati of the British Museum Collection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Independent researcher, Torino, Italy

    Pierluigi Debernardi

  2. Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Torino and INFN, Sezione di Torino, Via P. Giuria 1, 10125, Torino, Italy

    Jacopo Corsi, Alessandro Lo Giudice & Alessandro Re

  3. Dipartimento di Beni Culturali, Università degli Studi di Padova, Piazza Capitaniato 7, 35169, Padova, Italy

    Ivana Angelini

  4. Istituto dei Sistemi Complessi, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Via Madonna del Piano 10, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy

    Elisa Barzagli & Francesco Grazzi

  5. Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (ISIS Facility), Chilton, Didcot, Oxon, OX11 0QX, UK

    Antonella Scherillo

  6. IPCF-CNR, Viale F. Stagno D’Alcontres 37, Messina (ME), Italy

    Antonella Scherillo

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  1. Pierluigi Debernardi
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  2. Jacopo Corsi
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  3. Ivana Angelini
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  4. Elisa Barzagli
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  5. Francesco Grazzi
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  6. Alessandro Lo Giudice
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  7. Alessandro Re
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  8. Antonella Scherillo
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Correspondence to Alessandro Re.

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Appendix

Appendix

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Images of the investigated coins; all details are provided in Table 1

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Debernardi, P., Corsi, J., Angelini, I. et al. Average and core silver content of ancient-debased coins via neutron diffraction and specific gravity. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 10, 1585–1602 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-017-0464-y

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