Analysis оf a material of unknown origin discovered archaeological excavations in ancient necropolis

Analysis оf a material of unknown origin discovered archaeological excavations in ancient necropolis

Oral presentation

Ava Amideina1, Gergana Mazneva1, Ivo Bardarov1, Boika Zlateva2, Iliya Borisov3, Petko Mandjukov1
1 Department of Chemistry, South-West University “N. Rilski”,Blagoevgrad 2 Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Sofia “St. Kl. Ohridski, Sofia 3 Regional Historic Museum, Blagoevgrad

The studied substance was discovered in a lead container (pyxis) discovered in 1986 in a grave close to the village Muletarovo (present name Rupite). It is dated presumably V-IV c. BC. At that place was situated the ancient town Heraclea Sintica. The content of pyxis was light colored unknown solid substance which was the subject of the present study. Identification of unknown substance, without any preliminary information existing, is one of the most difficult and challenging analytical tasks. To arrive at final conclusion, the information obtained using different analytical techniques should be compiled and analyzed. Optical microscopy, Attenuated Total Reflection Fourier Transforming Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), X-Ray fluorescence (XRF) and Inductively Coupled Plasma - Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) were applied to solve this problem. Considering all analytical data obtained as well as available literature the conclusion was that most probably, the content of the pyxis is ancient cosmetics based on lead containing minerals contaminated by lead corrosion products from the pyxis.