M. Járó - L. Költő szerk.: Archaeometrical research in Hungary (Budapest, 1988)
Analysis - BAKOS Miklós, BORSZÉKI János: Chemical analysis of silver coins of King St. Stephen
received identical coins for examination.Comparison of the results is presented in Table 3. It can be ascertained that the results of the analyses carried out by two different methods correspond well with one another, except for the case of iron content. The reason for this may be that the laser beam was directed to the edge of the coin which was not in contact with the steel die, but the X—ray luminescence method furnishes the composition of the coin surface; furthermore, the laser beam penetrates into the metal more deeply than the radio-active ray exciting the X—ray emission and therefore in the case of the laser method the constituting element present only on the surface does not distort the result or only to a negligible degree. On a raster electron microscopic picture in Pászthory's work [5], the tiny ir-m. par tiefe s present only on the surface of the coin can be seen very well; in all probability these came from the steel dieT Consequently this does not agree with Gedai's conclusion [6] that the results of the analyses carried out by means of different methods in various laboratories widely differ. Gedai misinterprets our examination report saying that — in contradiction with Káplár's analysis — the elements Ca, Mg and Si have not been detected neither by us nor by Kis-Varga and Költő. In fact, Ca, Mg and Si have been detected and reported by us as well as by Kis—Varga and Költő, but were not taken into account when calculating the composition as mentioned above. Gedai does not consider the efficiency of the different methods. From this point of view laser-microspectrochemical analysis is the most effective among the non-destructive methods because it can also detect the trace elements. On the other hand, X—ray luminescence can detect the elements present in amounts of less than 0.1% only in an exceptional case and with very long accumulation times. Gedai does not pay attention to the fact that Kis-Varga and Költő have investigated only the elements given in their Table 1 and taking their sum as 100% have given the composition of the coins. In the case of this method it is the usual procedure and the results should be evaluated with respect to this fact. The same concerns the results of Hahn and Mauterer [3]. The results of Halm and Mauterer concerning two other C.N.H. I. 7. coins are also recorded in Table 3. It appears from these data that the composition of coin No. 1 is very similar to one of the coins examined by us, but the other contains more copper. The results of. the analyses of 7 different C.N.H. I. 1. coins are summarized in Table 4. These data are insufficient to enable one to draw general conclusions, but it can be seen that the silver content is remarkably high in one case and the copper content is uncommonly high in two cases. The piece analysed by us contains zinc, bismuth and antimony as trace elements and therefore the opinion of Kis-Varga and Költő is indefensible in that it concludes that only the imitations of the St. Stephen's coins contain zinc and bismuth but the genuine ones not. This also indicates that general conclusions cannot be drawn from such limited data. Concerning the iron content the situation is the same as in the case of the C.N.H. 1. 7. coins. The results of the analyses of three C.N.H. 1. 5. coins are recorded in Table 5. The data of the first and second column correspond well with one another except, once again, for the case of iron content. Most likely they represent the same coin. Suimriing up what has been said it can be concluded that 1. The results of the laser-microspectrochemical analyses and of the X-ray luminescence ones correspond well with one another except for the case of the iron content. This discrepancy is to be investigated further. 2. It appears from the results obtained up to the present that the trace element content of all three types of St, Stephen's coins is different. The definitive answer can be obtained only from the results of examinations carried out on a considerable number of coins.
