Non-destructive analysis of bronze and iron weapons from the Etruscan town of Populonia (Tuscany, Italy)

Populonia was a very important Etruscan and Roman metal production centre. At Populonia were produced iron, copper, bronze and other metal artefacts; however, our knowledge on iron objects is still very scarce due to the lacking of well preserved items from local workshops. Recently, (during the 1996) along the Baratti beach, just underneath the Populonia acropolis, was found a large block constituted by several iron and bronze weapons strongly welded by corrosion products. The purpose of the present project is to fully characterize the various items from a morphological, compositional and technological point of view with non-invasive analytical methods with a particular focus on remnants of iron artefacts. Neutronography was successfully employed to get information about the general shape and the single constituents of the deposit. Neutron diffraction analysis on selected samples of the deposit evidenced that, unfortunately, primary iron (steel?) has been almost completely replaced by iron oxy-hydroxides through exogenous alteration. Our results, however, could represent a starting point for application of such techniques to the study of complex archaeo-metallurgical objects.