Art and Archaeometry with Handheld XRF

With new advancements in technology, archaeometry – or the collection of quantitative data from archaeological samples – is quickly becoming one of the most trusted methods in archaeological study. As the longtime industry leader in portable XRF analysis, we are uniquely capable of providing handheld nondestructive testing solutions for art and artifacts in the field, in the lab, or on the museum wall.

Thermo Scientific Niton analyzers are the ideal tools to aid in a variety of applications in art and archaeology, including:

• Archaeological reconnaissance survey – obtain geochemical data instantaneously
• Provenance – compare sources and artifacts, build databases, and much more
• Restoration – match pigments and other materials for restoration quickly and accurately
• Conservation – help identify how objects have been preserved in the past, and how to better conserve them for the future by looking at elemental composition data
• Cultural Resource Management – identify areas of historic human activity quickly and easily
• NAGPRA Compliance – ensure that traces of toxic preservatives have been removed from artifacts prior to repatriation
• Dating – glean important clues to the age of petroglyphs, alloys, and other materials through elemental analysis
• Authentication – help authenticate a variety of art and artifacts using elemental data

With the ability to identify and quantify virtually any element from magnesium through uranium in any sample, our analyzers are the only real option for portable archaeometric analysis. They are the first to integrate the analytical capabilities of a laboratory XRF instrument into a single, handheld device, offering: