Antimony as a raw material in ancient metal and glass making: provenancing Georgian LBA metallic Sb by isotope analysis

STAR: Science & Technology of Archaeological Research Pub Date : 2019-11-13 DOI:10.1080/20548923.2019.1681138

Sarah Dillis, A. Van Ham-Meert, Peter Leeming, A. Shortland, Gela Gobejishvili, Mikheil Abramishvili, P. Degryse

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引用次数: 14

Abstract

ABSTRACT Sb was frequently used as a raw material, both in ancient glass-making (as an opacifier and decolouriser) and metallurgy (either as an alloying element or as a pure metal). Despite this ubiquity, antimony production has only occasionally been studied and questions concerning its provenance are still not satisfactorily answered. This study evaluates the suitability of Sb isotope analysis for provenance determination purposes, as experiments under lab conditions have revealed fractionation occurring during redox processes in oxidising stibnites and in making opacified glasses. The results of this paper help to evaluate the possible influence of the pyrotechnological processes on the antimony isotope composition of glass artefacts. This paper focuses on the Caucasus as case study by applying mineralogical, geochemical and isotopic analysis to Georgian ores (mainly from the Racha-Lechkumi district) and Late Bronze Age (LBA; 15th–10th century BCE) metallic Sb objects found at the sites of Brili and Chalpiragorebi. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

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锑作为古代金属和玻璃制造的原料:用同位素分析确定格鲁吉亚LBA金属Sb的来源

Sb经常被用作古代玻璃制造(作为不透明剂和脱色剂)和冶金(作为合金元素或纯金属)的原料。尽管这种普遍存在，锑的生产只是偶尔被研究，有关其来源的问题仍然没有令人满意的答案。本研究评估了Sb同位素分析在确定来源方面的适用性，因为在实验室条件下的实验表明，在氧化辉锑矿和制作不透明玻璃的氧化还原过程中会发生分馏。本文的结果有助于评价高温工艺对玻璃制品锑同位素组成的可能影响。本文以高加索地区为例，对格鲁吉亚矿石(主要来自Racha-Lechkumi地区)和青铜时代晚期(LBA;公元前15 - 10世纪)在Brili和Chalpiragorebi遗址发现的金属Sb物体。图形抽象

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STAR: Science & Technology of Archaeological Research

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