The Elemental Analysis of Elymais Period Coins by PIXE Technique and Their Statistical Analysis by SPSS

TL;DR

This study uses PIXE and SPSS to analyze Elymaean coins, revealing variations in elemental composition, mint origins, and raw material sources across different periods, enhancing understanding of their economic and political history.

Contribution

It introduces a combined PIXE and statistical analysis approach to determine elemental composition, mint origins, and raw material sources of Elymaean coins, providing new insights into their metallurgy and trade.

Findings

Main elements vary across periods, with earlier coins being purer.

Coins were minted in six different mints.

Raw materials originated from three distinct mines.

Abstract

The Elymaean have existed as a semi-autonomous satrap and sometimes autonomous, coinciding with the Seleucids and the Parthians in the southwest and west of Iran. This government has played an active presence in political and economic events of the region from the mid-second century BC to the advent of the Sasanid Empire. In this paper is tried using of archaeometry matter to Study historical coins of Elymaean. This method is a valuable criterion for recognition of size and weight of coins. Elemental studies of coins give us valuable information in connection with particle size, combinations percentage of the coins, and applied metallurgy in the manufacture of these coins. These studies provide the groundwork for the understanding of the economic and political structure and commercial communications of the society. The difference in the level of element concentration may contain information concerning the mine of these metals. In this paper have been studied total coins of bronze and silver belonging to the Elymaean using PIXE Technique to be can achieve the beneficial results about the identification of concentration of present elements, the number of mines and the number of mints through elemental analysis and definition of the chemical composition of metals. To achieve the above-mentioned goals, we analyzed 35 coins of Elymais. These coins involve three periods of Elymaean ( from 85 BC to 224 AD). The observations results showed that the percentage of main elements of coins such as silver and copper in the three periods of Elymaean were different together and coins of the first period have had more purity. Furthermore, the analyzed coins are minted in six mints and their primal raw materials are from three different mines. Lastly, statistical analysis in this study is performed with SPSS software.