Texture measurements of archaeological objects at STRESS-SPEC neutron diffractometer

Abstract The main advantage of neutron diffraction over X-ray diffraction, arises from the fact that the interaction of neutrons with material is relatively weak and not related to the number of electrons, and consequently the penetration depth of neutrons is about 10²-10³ larger than that of laboratory X-ray diffraction. This is particular essential for the non-destructive texture analysis of archaeological objects as no additional surface treatments of the samples (e.g. polishing) are necessary. STRESS-SPEC at MLZ is designed as a state of the art multi-purpose diffractometer for strain and texture analysis. Besides the optimized high neutron flux the available large variability in gauge volume definition systems together with the robotic sample handling option offer high flexibility for bulk or gradient texture measurements. Since 2014, local and bulk textures of iron and gold artefacts collected by Bavarian State Archaeological Collection (Munich, Germany) have been thoroughly investigated at STRESS-SPEC. Results showed that heat treatment of iron artefacts at high temperatures can re-orientate the inner crystallites. In the gold foil artefacts, the texture represented by the measured pole figures shows a high symmetry – the so-called Cube component, which is commonly found in annealed fcc materials. For comparison, laboratory samples were produced by rolling, flat hammering, and pin / round hammering and also measured in order to elucidate possible manufacturing and processing routes. In turned out that both rolling and pin / round hammering followed by a high temperature annealing can produce similar pole figures to those of the gold artefacts foils.