Since you cannot bring a synchrotron to Egypt this would require temporary
export. This is not possible, but if it were, LA-ICP-MS would still be the
method of choice. It can be performed on large objects too.

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Arch-Metals Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Im Auftrag von
Killick, David J - (killick)
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 18. Oktober 2012 19:20
An: [log in to unmask]
Betreff: Re: King Tut's iron blade

I agree with Ernst that LA-ICPMS would be ideal, but unfortunately there is
no chance that anyone would be allowed to drill samples like the King Tut
blade. Perhaps synchrotron radiation would be best, but I know little about
it. I do know that it is non-destructive, can be done on whole artefacts,
yields chemical composition for both major and trace elements (but to what
detection limits??) and - most interestingly for meteoritic iron - can also
provide metallographic parameters such as grain size, residual stress and
spatial distribution of elements. If Brian Newberry or Leslie Frame are
reading this, could they comment on the potential application of the
synchrotron to this problem?



________________________________________
From: [log in to unmask] [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2012 9:40 AM
To: Arch-Metals Group; Killick, David J - (killick)
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: King Tut's iron blade

 From the site of Kerkenes Dag we have some iron we are looking at,
from Anatolia but from the 7th century BC, a little later.  Regarding
the analytical determination of whether the iron is smelted
iron-nickel alloy or meteoric, this could still be hard to do, for
example the Mundrabilla fall in Western Australia has 7.7% nickel,59.5
ppm gallium, 196 ppm germanium and only 0.87 ppm iridium, so on
corroded archaeological artefacts determining here the amount of Ir at
less than 1ppm would not be easy..certainly worth trying and a pity
that the hand-held XRF instruments would not really be able to help
here....all the best...david

Quoting "Killick, David J - (killick)" <[log in to unmask]>:

> Many thanks to Thilo for making this copy available. Unfortunately,
> as Ernst points out, it does not solve the problem of whether this
> is smelted or terrestrial iron.  This question really needs to be
> properly investigated. If I remember correctly, Michel Valloggia
> discusses (in Mediterranean Archaeology 14, 2001) the slightly
> earlier letter from Armana in which a Hittite ruler makes excuses to
> his Egyptian counterpart for not sending the iron that the latter
> had requested, and he (Valloggia)  argues that the Tutankhamum
> dagger is one such gift. Why is it necessary to know whether this
> object is meteoritic or smelted iron?  Because it is one of the
> best-preserved iron objects from the period when iron was just
> starting to become available to elites in Anatolia (during the New
> Hittite period, 1400-1200 BCE). There are few contemporary iron
> artefacts known from Anatolia itself - most of what we know about
> Hittite iron is from contemporary documents.
>
> Non-destructive measurement of Ga, PGE and Co on the blade could be
> done either by PIXE or by synchrotron radiation. Unfortunately, as
> far as I have been able to determine by asking Egyptologists,
> neither technique is available in Egypt, and Egyptian policy on
> antiquities prohibits the temporary export of artefacts for
> scientific analysis.  This is why the study of archaeometallurgy in
> Egypt lags so far behind that in the rest of Eurasia and Africa. As
> Michel Wuttman wrote (also in Mediterranean Archaeology 14, 2001) we
> know little more today about the development of metallurgy in Egypt
> than we did in 1960.
>
>


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