Alchemy discussion forum > News - Meetings - Events > News - Meeting - Events > How goldsmiths fooled the Anglo-Saxon world
Alchemy discussion forum > News - Meetings - Events > News - Meeting - Events > How goldsmiths fooled the Anglo-Saxon world |
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| Moderated by: alchemyd | ||
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Paul Ferguson Member 
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"Scientific research, carried out over the past two years on behalf of Birmingham City and Stoke-on-Trent City councils, which jointly own the hoard, has revealed that the Anglo-Saxon goldsmiths had discovered an ingenious way of, metallurgically, dressing mutton up as a lamb. It appears that they deliberately used a weak acid solution – almost certainly ferric chloride – to remove silver and other non-gold impurities from the top few microns of the surfaces of gold artefacts, thus increasing the surfaces’ percentage gold content and therefore improving its appearance. This piece of Anglo-Saxon high tech deception turned the surfaces of relatively low karat, slightly greenish pale yellow gold/silver alloys into high karat, rich deep yellow, apparently high purity gold." http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/news/britains-greatest-treasure-hoard-reveals-how-goldsmiths-cheated-their-saxon-clients-9799977.html |
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Alexander Guthrie Stewart Member
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If I recall correctly, they found that more depletion guilded stuff associated with women than with men. Eleanor gave a talk about the hoard and her study of it at a meeting of the historical metallurgy society in May this year. |
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