ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

Characterising Early Iron Age Indian Iron Smelting Technology: neutron analysis

Abstract: Recent archaeological research, supported by radiocarbon dates, indicates that iron production in India can now be dated to the earlier part of the 2nd millennium BC, pre-dating the Bronze-Iron transition in Anatolia and the Eastern Mediterranean. Conventional bulk chemical analysis of silicates (e.g smelting slag, ore, furnace lining) and metal artefacts is destructive. We will use neutron and muon instruments at ISIS to obtain genuine bulk compositions, without dissolving or crushing-up samples, or cutting metallographic sections from the irreplaceable archaeological material. We propose to use negative muon analysis to do non-destructive bulk chemical analysis of the earliest-dated smelting slag, furnace lining, and ore fragments from archaeological sites in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, India. We request 9 days of muon beamtime, and 5 days of INES beamtime, to carry out the work.

Principal Investigator: Professor Vibha Tripathi
Experimenter: Dr Winfried Kockelmann
Experimenter: Dr Evelyne Godfrey
Local Contact: Dr Antonella Scherillo
Experimenter: Dr Prabhakar Upadhyay

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1720457

ISIS Experiment Number: RB1720457

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:
Professor Vibha Tripathi et al; (2017): Characterising Early Iron Age Indian Iron Smelting Technology: neutron analysis, STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1720457