Complex metallographic study on Gepid bronze and silver buckles from the Great Hungarian Plain (5-6th cent.)

Abstract

This work presents a complex metallographic examination of bronze, silver and golden artefacts from early medieval German (Gepid) cemeteries of the Hungarian Plain, focusing on the finds from Tiszapüspöki.A newly developed non-destructive X-ray diffraction method was applied on the artefacts for the first time, as a novel approach, for sampling-free residual stress measurements. Other techniques such as optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy combined with energy dispersive spectrometry has also been used. In addition to residual stress, crystallographic texture and properties of the reflections were analysed as well. The combined application of these methods was found to be an effective tool to deduce the production technologies of the examined artefacts. In addition to defining the characteristics of the material structures and compositions on the surfaces of the artefacts, the typical traces of several technological methods as casting, forming, coating were detected which are used for making various types of artefacts.

Keywords

• Bronze
• Silver
• X-ray diffraction
• Residual stress
• Optical microscopy
• SEM-EDS