Elemental analysis by XRF and HE-PIXE on silver coins from the 16th-17th centuries and on a gilded crucifix from the 12th century

Objects from the Dobrée Museum (Grand Patrimoine de Loire- Atlantique, conservation unit), silver coins minted in Nantes between the years 1561 and 1599 and a twelfth-century fire-gilded crucifix were studied. The goal is to analyze trace elements in coins to determine silver sources and measure the thickness of the fire-gilding layer to provide information about the manufacturing technique of the crucifix. We focused on X-ray emission-based analysis, especially High Energy Particle Induced X-ray Emission (HE-PIXE) developed at Arronax cyclotron and handheld X-Ray Fluorescence (p-XRF) used at Arc’Antique laboratory. In this paper, four coins have been analyzed with HE-PIXE and p-XRF and three different locations on the crucifix. We detected indium and gold as silver markers in coins and we measured the thickness of the layer of gold on the crucifix. Those data are helpful to answer historical questions relative to the objects.