Noninvasive µ-XRF Analysis of Ancient Silver Object

Abstract This case study details the noninvasive analysis of an 5000-year-old silver figurine from Iran, now in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The The object of this study, a figure of a kneeling bull clothed in a robe with a stepped linear pattern and holding up a spouted vessel, is composed of 15 pieces of worked silver joined together with silver solder. The aim of the study is to apply noninvasive micro-xray fluorescence spectroscopy (μ-XRF) analysis to characterize the silver alloy compositions and compare the new data with previously obtained results from invasive chemical analyses of samples performed by thermal neutron activation.