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Staffordshire hoard research reveals secret of Anglo-Saxon ‘gold’
All that glistered was not gold in Anglo-Saxon Mercia, or at least not the glowing pure gold which the warriors and princes coveted as arm rings and ornaments for their helmets and swords.
Research on the Staffordshire hoard, the largest hoard of precious metal from the period ever found, has revealed that their craftsmen had a cunning plan, a secret technique which gave lower grade metal with a high silver content the appearance of pure gleaming gold.
The technique was not written down in Anglo-Saxon times, and had never been detected in metalwork from the period, but a similar technique was known from Roman accounts. It must have been spoken about by the brilliant Anglo-Saxon metal workers, and involved taking gold which was alloyed with up to 25% silver, and heating it in an acid solution – made from iron rich minerals such as brick dust – so that at the surface the silver leached out and could be burnished off. The surface would then appear to be the highest quality gold, but just below the surface there was inferior metal.
“They knew what they were doing,” said Eleanor Blakelock, the scientist who discovered their secret. “This wasn’t something which could possibly have happened by accident.”
Research on the Staffordshire hoard, the largest hoard of precious metal from the period ever found, has revealed that their craftsmen had a cunning plan, a secret technique which gave lower grade metal with a high silver content the appearance of pure gleaming gold.
The technique was not written down in Anglo-Saxon times, and had never been detected in metalwork from the period, but a similar technique was known from Roman accounts. It must have been spoken about by the brilliant Anglo-Saxon metal workers, and involved taking gold which was alloyed with up to 25% silver, and heating it in an acid solution – made from iron rich minerals such as brick dust – so that at the surface the silver leached out and could be burnished off. The surface would then appear to be the highest quality gold, but just below the surface there was inferior metal.
“They knew what they were doing,” said Eleanor Blakelock, the scientist who discovered their secret. “This wasn’t something which could possibly have happened by accident.”
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/oct/17/staffordshire-hoard-anglo-saxon-gold-secret-technique-treasure?CMP=share_btn_fb