EARLY USE OF BRASS IN SILVER ALLOYS

Summary. The routine analysis of twenty-two silver rings revealed that in some Roman rings brass had been added instead of pure copper. These alloys had formed corrosion products during burial, which meant that the results of surface XRF analysis had to be used with caution. Destructive analysis gave accurate interior compositions, which are used in comparisons with similar material from other authors.     

THE METALLURGY of the WILBURTON HOARDS

Summary: The results to date of a programme of research into the metallurgy of the Wilburton hoards of the British Late Bronze Age are described and some interpretations presented. Possible origins for the metal are discussed. the associated technical advances are discussed and an attempt is made to provide a realistic metallurgical context for the hoards.
I would like to thank the British Museum, London; the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff; Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography; Museum of London; Winchester City Museums; Somerset County Museum, Taunton; Dorset County Museum, Dorchester; Exeter City Museums; Plymouth City Museums; Royal Institution of Cornwall, Truro; Musée des Antiquités Nationales, St.-Germain-en-Laye and Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, West Berlin for permission to take samples for analysis.
A special acknowledgement must be made to Miss E. Owles and the Moyses Hall Museum, Bury St. Edmunds for immense assistance given in the study of the Isleham hoard.
I would also like to thank Mr. D. Britton, Mr. R. Bradley and Mr. S. Needham for several useful discussions, Mr. A. McKnight for photography and Dr. M. Leese, British Museum Research Laboratory, for statistical calculations. Mr. A. McKnight for photography, Dr. M. Leese, British Museum Research Laboratory, for statistical calculations and Dr. N. H. Gale, Department of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Oxford for lead isotope analyses.     

THE DISCOVERY OF ANOMALOUSLY HIGH SILVER ABUNDANCES IN POTTERY FROM EARLY ROMAN EXCAVATION CONTEXTS IN JERUSALEM*

This is the first study on the differential distribution and concentrations of silver in ceramics recovered from archaeological excavations. The chemical compositions of 1174 pottery vessels from 38 Roman‐period sites in Israel have been determined. Unusually high and variable abundances of silver were discovered in pottery samples of all vessel types and chemical compositions from four distinct archaeological contexts dating to late first century bce to 70 ce Jerusalem. The large majority of the Jerusalem vessels could be distinguished by their silver abundances from all analysed pottery pieces recovered at rural sites outside Jerusalem, even when the pottery types and chemical compositions, except for silver, of pottery found within and outside Jerusalem were indistinguishable. The evidence is suggestive of a human origin for the high and variable silver abundances, and dispersion of the silver by aqueous transport. The differential silver concentrations found in excavated pottery from Jerusalem and other urban and rural sites suggest that attention to the distribution of silver in pottery from excavated contexts may be helpful for evaluating the nature and function of archaeological remains and patterns of urban contamination.     

HOARDS D'OEUVRES: OF METALS & MEN ON BRONZE AGE CYPRUS

Summary. Diverse streams of archaeological and metallurgical research have demonstrated that Cyprus was an important regional copper producer and supplier during the eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age, at least from 1700–1100 BC. Until recently, research into metallurgical production and exchange on Bronze Age Cyprus necessarily focused on technological change and chronological division. Metals' provenience studies have begun to mature, and economic approaches related to copper production and exchange have begun to appear. In stark contrast to recent literature on hoarding activity in Bronze and Iron Age Europe, virtually no attention has been paid to the manner in which metals enter the archaeological record. In response to a growing body of theoretical literature, this study examines the gift-commodity model and finds it wanting; instead the deposition of Cypriote hoards is considered from a politico-economic perspective, and in light of socio-historical and metallurgical data relevant to interregional developments in the contemporary Mediterranean world.     

BARBAROUS RADIATE HOARDS: the INTERPRETATION of COIN DEPOSITS IN LATE THIRD-CENTURY ROMAN BRITAIN

Summary: The episode of prolific coin hoarding in Roman Britain between c. 259 and 287 has never been fully explained. This paper looks at a major group of these hoards; those recognised as containing irregular antoniniani. Two distinct sub-groups are identified, which are shown to have non-random, almost mutually exclusive, distributions. an explanation for coin hoarding is considered which associates the location of certain deposits with the spread of coin use to new, marginal, areas of Britain.     

COMPARISON OF METHODS OF ANALYSIS OF SILVER AND GOLD IN SILVER COINS

A series of silver coins was analysed for silver and gold contents by three methods—chemical wet analysis, activation analysis and X-ray fluorescence using a point source linear spectrometer (milliprobe). The results indicate that while the X-ray fluorescence technique gives better agreement with chemical analysis for major components the use of activation analysis with automated equipment results in a considerable saving of time and has a high sensitivity for some minor components.     

法风银颂

银光流转,贵族气质在不经意间流露,那是Ercuis 手工银器的光泽,一眼入心。寒光通常代表的冷峻硬朗被它温柔打破。     

SOLDERING ROMAN SILVER PLATE

Summary. Nineteen Roman silver objects, mainly from the British Museum's collection, with traces of solder, were examined by microscopy and analysed by x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. The results are discussed in relation to work on soldered objects from earlier periods and to the contemporary literary sources which are reviewed, and the solder recipes listed. Pliny's recipes for stagnum, a solder for silver, and the evidence of soldering techniques provided by later texts are discussed in detail.
Silver-tin solders and a silver-mercury solder have been identified for the first time, and predate their first appearance in the literature. Experiments were made with tin and silver-tin solders and the results are discussed.     

DETECTION OF NEAR-SURFACE SILVER ENRICHMENT ON ROMAN IMPERIAL SILVER COINS BY X-RAY SPECTRAL ANALYSIS*

A collection of 218 Roman imperial silver coins, covering three centuries, was analysed non-destructively by two variants of X-ray spectral analysis. Electron beam excitation and energy-dispersive spectrometry was used for the analysis of the uppermost thin layer (3 μm) of each coin, while X-ray tube excitation and wavelength-dispersive spectrometry was applied for the analysis of thicker layers (30 μm), Ag and Cu as major constituents and 18 minor elements were determined quantitatively. Comparing the silver content of the obverse and the reverse of a coin, inhomogeneities could be identified. By comparison of the silver content of the upper thin and the thick surface layers, near-surface silver enrichment could be detected. Inhomogeneities and enrichments increase in the second and more so in the third century. A large scatter of the silver content and silver enrichment for coins of the same emperor was attributed to varying abrasion of Ag-enriched layers of the individual coins during decades of circulation.     

湖南省鑫达银业有限公司

公司成立于2003年7月．总部座落在交通便利、环境优雅的“粤、港、澳后花园”——郴州永兴三胞经济开发区。公司总资产1．2亿元．旗下拥有白银精品厂、白银工艺制品厂、顺达冶炼厂．永银米业公司等企业。主要产品有“永银”牌1#白银和“湘水”牌系列银制品。2006年．公司总产值11亿元．上交国家税款3658万元．是一个集现代化智能办公、生产．销售（出口）、网上交易,工业旅游于一体．并初具集团化规模的企业．是中国银都的龙头和形象企业。     

墨西哥银元在中国的流通

墨西哥银元 ,俗称鹰洋。是世界金融史上颇具传奇色彩的货币。十九世纪中叶开始 ,这种外国货币逐渐成为我国华东、华南地区使用最广、最受欢迎、最有势力、流通量最大的银币 ,风行数十年不衰。对我国货币制度影响深远。虽然鹰洋在中国货币史上有重要地位 ,有关的专门研究还是空白。本文全面研究墨西哥银元在中国流通问题 ,其中不足之处 ,希方家指正。一鹰洋是著名的西班牙“PESO” (比索 )的继承者。十六世纪四十年代 ,西班牙殖民者先后在秘鲁 (今玻利维亚 )的波托西和墨西哥的萨卡特拉斯等地发现大银矿 ,此后三、四百年 ,巨额美洲白银源源…     

AN EARLY EUBOEAN SHIP

Summary. A pyxis with the painting of a ship was found during the 1986 Greco-British excavations in the Toumba Cemetery at Lefkandi, Euboea. It was part of a deposit of broken pottery included in the refill of a shaft grave which had apparently destroyed an earlier tomb. The vase can with fair certainty be dated around 850–825 B.C. by the Attic Middle Geometric I pottery associated with it and from its local style.
The painting of a ship contained in one of its panels is, therefore, among the earliest pictorial representations known from Iron Age Greece. It is proposed that the subject may have been suggested to the Lefkandian potter by similar ship scenes on the engraved catchplates of contemporary fibulae.     

唐代银饼考

唐代以前,白银的计量多用斤、两等重量单位,也有用白银的地金形态“铤”为单位者,问或还有以“饼”为计量量词者,使我们知道其时白银的地金形态亦有饼形。如： 《三国志·魏书·三少帝纪（齐王芳）》：“赐银千饼,绢千匹,以光宠存亡,永垂来世焉。”