Investigation of Italian Bronze Age gold artefacts with portable laser ablation ICP-MS (pLA-ICP-MS)

In the framework of an ongoing research project Mycenaean gold – Studies on Origin, Distribution and Authenticity the identification of possible exchange networks of Mycenaean Greece and its neighbors was one of the major goals. Therefore, the chemical compositions of Italian Bronze Age gold objects were investigated in order to check indications of serial production, information regarding the geological source of the gold, and, by comparing the results of the analyses, to investigate a direct or indirect contact between northern and southern Italy. Furthermore, the gold composition was compared with contemporary objects of other European regions that offer typological parallels for some of the analyzed gold objects from Italy. We investigated whether these objects are also comparable in their chemical composition, which would suggest the exchange of raw materials and/or finished products. The typologically related objects include so-called "endless” gold wires and discs made of thin gold foils, the so-called sun discs. In this article we report on our archaeometric analyses of 18 Recent Bronze Age (RBA) to Final Bronze Age (FBA) Age gold objects from Roca Vecchia, Frattesina (Narde cemetery), and Montagnana/Borgo San Zeno. We compare them with analyses of gold objects from Austria and Bohemia. The objects were sampled on-site in Italy with the minimally invasive portable laser ablation (pLA) technique and subsequently analyzed with inductively coupled mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) at the Curt-Engelhorn-Centre Archaeometry (CEZA) in Mannheim, Germany. Compared with non-invasive techniques like X-ray fluorescence (XRF) this method provides reliable and quantitative information not only on the major/alloying elements, but also at the trace element level, especially of the platinum-group elements (PGE).