PIXE investigation of Roman metal archaeological objects from the Municipium Tifernum Mataurense area (S. Angelo in Vado, Italy)

Six rather different bronze archaeological artefacts discovered over time in the Tifernum Mataurense area (S. Angelo in Vado, Marche Region, Italy) did not fit by visual inspection to the findings collected in nearby archaeological sites and they differ from each other, too. The primary goal of this work was to obtain data from the elemental composition of using a fast non-destructive quantitative analytical method. To do that the external milli-beam particle induced X-ray emission spectroscopy (external milli-beam PIXE) was chosen. Taking into account that not any invasive actions as burnishing, scratching or chemical treatment were allowed and the surface of the objects was rather corroded or patinated, the results obtained can be considered to be rather informative, only. Even these informative results, however, are useful to set up a classification of the objects according to the chemical composition and provide complementary near-surface composition information to the bulk data expected from cold neutron PGAA analyses to be performed.