Roman military copper‐alloy artefacts from Israel: questions of organization and ethnicity*

The published analyses of Roman military copper‐alloy metalwork from Masada are complimented by additional ICP‐AES analyses of material from Gamla enabling further discussion of alloying trends and presenting new insights into the organization of the Roman military and the cultural specificity of brass technology.     

INDUCTIVELY COUPLED PLASMA ATOMIC EMISSION SPECTROSCOPY ANALYSES OF ROMAN MILITARY COPPER-ALLOY ARTEFACTS FROM THE EXCAVATIONS AT MASADA,ISRAEL*

A selection of Roman military fittings and associated copper-alloy artefacts was analysed by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy. The method used was a variant on those previously published and gives very good precision and accuracy. The Roman metalwork analysed conforms extremely well to similar artefacts analysed from, contemporaneous European sites and suggests, despite the strongly ‘local’ nature of the Judaean legions, a considerable uniformity of alloying practice within the Roman army during the first century AD.