Archaeometrical processing of polished stone artefacts of the Ebenhöch-collection (Hungarian NAtional Museum, Budapest, Hungary)
Orsolya Friedel1, Balázs Bradák2, György Szakmány1, Veronika Szilágyi3, Katalin T. Biró4.
1
Department of Petrology and Geochemistry, Eötvös Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary2
Department of Physical Geography, Eötvös Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary3
Institute of Isotopes, HAS, Budapest, Hungary4
Hungarian National Museum, Budapest, Hungary
Petrological processing of archaeological polished stone artefact within the Carpathian Basin has started to develop only in the last decades. This work benefited much from the systematical elaboration of historical collections of the 19th century. One of the nicest collection was donated to the Hungarian National Museum by Ferencz Ebenhöch, abbot-canon in Győr. The collection is extremely rich in polished stone artefacts, unique not only because of its quantity, but also the beauty of the tools. It comprised nearly 700 pieces. Until now only a preliminary macroscpic petrographical identification was made on the items. The present investigations aim at trying to identify and describe the raw materials of the artefacts and if possible, to determine their provenance.
We made a detailed macroscopic study of the complete set of artefacts. On a selected sample, polarising microscopic studies were made by macroscopical type groups. For the more specific determination of the rock types we completed our investigations with magnetic susceptibility measurements (MS), chemical analyses by PGAA method and mineral chemical analysis.
The dominant raw material types of the polished stones are, different types of greenschist-metabasite, volcanites (mainly basalt and andesite), metavolcanites and serpentinites. Rare raw material types include hornfels, dyke and metadyke rocks, HP metamorphic rocks (eclogite, jadeite bearing rocks) and sandstone.