Seal dies from the National Museum of Slovenia: Non‐destructive analyses of medieval and early modern copper alloys

Abstract

A representative group of seal dies made of copper alloys from the collection of the National Museum of Slovenia was investigated by energy‐dispersive X‐ray fluorescence spectrometry (EDXRF). Chronologically, the artefacts date from the early 13th century to the present. Non‐destructive EDXRF screening of elemental fingerprints of Cu, Zn, Pb, Ag, Sn and Sb was performed on 95 seal dies, and the obtained elemental data set was further processed by chemometric tools such as principal component analysis (PCA). The relationships between the elemental composition of analysed seal dies, type of alloy applied and their historical context—date, location of manufacture and, possibly, social rank of the owner—were examined in detail.