NON-DESTRUCTIVE PORTABLE GAMMA RAY SPECTROMETRY USED IN PROVENANCING ROMAN GRANITOID COLUMNS FROM LEPTIS MAGNA, NORTH AFRICA

Abstract

Portable gamma ray spectrometry (PGRS) provides a non destructive means to analyst quantitatively large artefacts, such as building stones, for the radioelements K. U and Th. Nine Raman granitoid columns at the Leptis Magna Ruins in Windsor Great Park, London, were measured in situ by PGRS. Corrections for the environmental background contribution to the gamma ray flux measured, and for the shape and size of the columns, are described Comparison of the PGRS data with a radioelement data base for Roman granite sources indicates that most of the columns originated in the Troad area of Turkey. Two columns could not be unambiguously provenanced using PGRS alone because there is insufficient difference between radioelement concentrations in certain sources. However, non-destructive measurements of magnetic susceptibility, used in conjunction with PGRS data, suggest that these two columns originated in the Kozak Daǧ, also in Turkey.