Bismuth behaviour during ancient processes of silver–lead production
Maxime L’Héritier|Sandrine Baron|Laurent Cassayre|Florian Téreygeol
Bismuth is one of the main trace elements found in archaeological lead and silver material very variable contents. As refining by cupellation involves redistribution some contained initial bullion into litharge phases, an interdisciplinary approach has been carried out to understand behaviour bismuth during this process. Twenty-eight fire-assays were processed with seven different Pb–Bi–Ag alloys various Bi content. A chemical characterization all products was out. Parallel experiments, a thermodynamic undertaken. The combination experiments modelling shows that Bi/Pb ratio can be used as tracer throughout whole Ag contents metallic might well highlight metallurgical process obtain lead. High silver–lead bullions are shown notably reduce extraction yield.
Journal of Archaeological Science|HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe)|Open Archive Toulouse Archive Ouverte (University of Toulouse)|HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe)|HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe)|HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe)