ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

Alloy Profiling of Iron Age Gold Coins Using Negative Muons

Abstract: Research into the early development of gold coinage in England in the late Iron Age period includes enquiries into the source of the gold used. A small hoard of gold staters issued by a king Dubnovellaunos from the Trinovantes tribe, found near Heybridge, Essex, is currently underway and has included XRF analyses of the alloy composition. Two tribes, in Kent and Essex, are associated with a leader named Dubnovellaunos shortly before the Roman invasion and there is ongoing scholarly debate whether this is one or two people and, if the former, whether separate mints existed.The ability of negative muons with specified momenta to probe below the surface of the coins without requiring any surface preparation or causing any harm to them will help to clarify the causes of the observed gold content variation and will quantify the degree and depth of any surface enrichment.

Principal Investigator: Dr John Davis
Experimenter: Miss Bethany Hampshire
Experimenter: Dr Adrian Hillier

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1910573

ISIS Experiment Number: RB1910573

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
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Data Citation

The recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is as:
[author], [date], [title], [publisher], [doi]

For Example:
Dr John Davis et al; (2019): Alloy Profiling of Iron Age Gold Coins Using Negative Muons, STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1910573

Data is released under the CC-BY-4.0 license.