How it’s made? How are they different? - Examination of medieval and LBA bronze objects by neutron diffraction method.

Solt-Tételhegy (Bács-Kiskun County, Hungary) is one of the richest sites of metal archaeological finds in the Carpathian Basin. The finds provide a distinctive variety of artefacts from successive periods, from the Middle Bronze Age (2700 BC) to the beginning of the Ottoman period in the Carpathian basin (1541 AD). More than 2700 metal objects have been recovered. The chemical analysis of the medieval bronze artifacts (with a portable ED-XRF spectrometer) indicated a wide variance in their chemical composition. The finds could be grouped based on the zinc, tin, and iron content of these copper alloys. The classification based on the lead content was uncertain. We propose non-destructive quantitative phase analysis by using neutron diffraction on nine medieval objects (2 measurements/object) to determine the characterization of the material in terms of presence and amount of crystalline phases and microstructure. A multiphase quantitative analysis will provide a clear picture of the composition of the alloys (relative amount of copper, tin, lead) and the microstructural proportions of the crystalline phases, i.e. lead and copper alloy, in the form of substitutional FCC structure.