181615

Archaeometallurgical Characterization and Condition Assessment of Ancient Roman Coins from Egypt

Article

Last updated: 04 Jan 2025

Subjects

-

Tags

CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION
GREEK-ROMAN ARCHAEOLOGY

Abstract

This paper presents scientific investigations of three ancient Roman coins excavated from Al Sheikh Zuweid, Sinai city in 2002. A punch of examination and analytical techniques consists of stereo microscope, optical microscope, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) are used to study the morphological characteristics of the coins patina, to identify the chemical composition of the metallic core, to determine the corrosion products and to understand the corrosion mechanism. The results indicate that copper is the major element of the three coins with small proportion of silver and tin. The presence of tin in the composition of two coins refers to bronze alloy. The identification of the exact corrosion products is determined by XRD analysis. The results reveal that the corrosion products consist mainly of cuprite and tenorite. Also, the results indicate that the coins were buried in a soil rich in chloride ions due to the presence of copper hydroxychlorides such as paratacamite and atacamite. Metallographic investigation is used to reveal the coins manufacture and identify spatial distribution of the alloy components and phases. Also, metallographic investigation indicates pitting corrosion resulted from the attack of chloride and the occurrence of a “bronze disease" phenomenon. The results of this study can provide valuable information that helping in conservation and preservation of the archaeological coins.

DOI

10.21608/shedet.2021.82804.1067

Keywords

Coins, copper-based alloy, archaeometallurgy, SEM-EDX, XRD

Authors

First Name

Hasnaa

Last Name

Ahmed

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Heritage Science Mobile Lab, Faculty of Archaeology, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt

Email

hasnaaahmed572@gmail.com

City

Fayoum

Orcid

-

First Name

Gamal

Last Name

Mahgoub

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Conservation department, Faculty of Archaeology, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt

Email

gam00@fayoum.edu.eg

City

Cairo

Orcid

-

First Name

Saleh

Last Name

Mohamed

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Conservation department, Faculty of Archaeology, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt

Email

sms02@fayoum.edu.eg

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

Abdelrazek

Last Name

Elnaggar

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Heritage Science Mobile Lab, Faculty of Archaeology, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt Conservation department, Faculty of Archaeology, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt

Email

abdelrazek.elnaggar@fayoum.edu.eg

City

Cairo

Orcid

-

Volume

8

Article Issue

8

Related Issue

29238

Issue Date

2021-12-01

Receive Date

2021-06-27

Publish Date

2021-12-01

Page Start

149

Page End

167

Print ISSN

2356-8704

Online ISSN

2536-9954

Link

https://shedet.journals.ekb.eg/article_181615.html

Detail API

https://shedet.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=181615

Order

11

Type

research articles

Type Code

1,264

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Shedet

Publication Link

https://shedet.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Archaeometallurgical Characterization and Condition Assessment of Ancient Roman Coins from Egypt

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023