Authors: Roberto Cesareo Angel D Bustamante Julio S Fabian Sandra Del Pilar Zambrano Walter Alva Luis Z Chero Maria C Del Carmen Espinoza Rosendo R Rodriguez Marco F Seclen Fidel V Gutierrez Edgard B Levano Juan A Gonzales Marcia A Rizzutto Enrico Poli Cristiane Calza Marcelino Dos Anjos Renato Pereira De Freitas Ricardo T Lopes Carlos Elera Izumi Shimada Victor Curay Maria G Castillo Giovanni E Gigante Gabriel M Ingo Fabio Lopes Ulla Holmquist David Diestra
Publish Date: 2013/05/17
Volume: 113, Issue: 4, Pages: 889-903
Abstract
Three types of alloys were recognized when analyzing preColumbian artifacts from the North of Peru gold silver and copper alloys gilded copper and silver silvered copper tumbaga ie copper or silver enriched on gold at the surface by depletion gilding In this paper a method is described to differentiate gold alloys from gilded copper and from copper–gold tumbaga and silver alloys from silvered copper and copper–silver tumbaga This method is based on the use of energydispersive Xray fluorescence ie on a sophisticated analysis of XRFspectra carrying out an accurate determination of CuK α /K β AgK α /K β AuL α /L β and AuL α /CuK α or AgK α /CuK α ratios That implies a dedicated software for the quantitative determination of the area of Xray peaks This method was first checked by a relevant number of standard samples and then it was applied to preColumbian alloys from the North of Peru
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