Fingerprint of precious metals ornaments to post-mortem inventory by energy dispersive X-Ray fluorescence spectrometry

Abstract

Quantitative analysis of metal alloys in ornaments can reveal relevant aspects about the substrates used in the manufacturing process. Fifty-three female ornaments (chains, rings, and earrings) were identified as jewelry and semi-jewelry using EDRFX. Twenty-three samples were identified and evaluated as jewelry because they had a substrate composed of different concentrations of gold (40-83%) ranging from 10 to 21 carats. This study can be considered the first to use EDRFX to analyze jewelry and semi-jewelry for post-mortem inventory, and substrate composition was decisive for fingerprinting the valuation of each artifact.