X-Ray Fluorescence scanning

On Friday 21st February our Curator Andy was joined by former University of Kent KAS student ambassador Alexander Read at Maidstone Museums.

Alexander is undertaking his MA dissertation with the Experimental Archaeology course at @universityofexeter, where he aims to reconstruct an early medieval sword. He approached the society as we hold a number of 6th century swords in our collections from the cemeteries at Sarre and Bifrons. Alexander brought along the university's Skyray Instrument Portable X-Ray Fluorescence scanner.

Through the PXRF we were able to analyse the composition of the swords' iron blades and the silver and copper alloy pommels. While the majority of results came back as expected we did make two interesting discoveries! We will post more on these discoveries on our website in due course!

Alexander also very kindly scanned a couple of objects belonging to Maidstone Museums which should be appearing on their social media channels soon!

After finishing at the museum, Alexander and our curator Andy headed over to our offices at Marsham Street to inspect some of the other objects in our collection including a couple of the Ozengell brooches, our recently donated Neolithic Axehead (stay tuned for more on this soon!), and our Roman lancet strap end from our excavations at Trosley Roman Villa back in 2022! All of the data gathered will be used by Andy to help research and care for these wonderful objects.

A big thank you to Alexander, his university, and Maidstone Museum for facilitating the day.

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