Archeology is a special discipline that seeks to explain and recreate past events based on the physical remains of humanity. Many methods of analytical chemistry are also used to help identify the remains. A special discipline of archaeometry is known, which deals with analytical methods of archaeological finds. Depending on what information about the artifact we want to obtain, we divide the analytical methods into three major groups: holistic, analytical and dating methods. Each of these methods gives a different piece of information about the artifact. A scanning electron microscope, which belongs to methods of holistic approach, was used to perform a surface analysis of eight archaeological remains found at the Cvinger archaeological site near Dolenjske toplice in the Branževec iron smelting area. For quantitative analysis the method of inductively coupled plasma coupled with a mass spectrometer was chosen, which belongs to analytical methods of archaeometry. Archaeologists had previously characterized the finds, and using both methods sought to confirm or refute their predictions. The samples belonged to different parts of the furnace, such as the wall (sample 1 along with sample 5 and 6), made of clay, where a brittle structure and a higher content of aluminum, silicon and oxygen were observed. Liquid slag samples (samples 1, 2, and 8) had a firmer and more compact structure where iron and oxygen predominated. One of the samples (sample 7), contained silicon and oxygen in addition to iron, and was more brittle and therefore represented a light slag. Two samples (samples 4 and 9) represented ore used to obtain elemental iron, which had angular particles of various shapes in the microstructure and contained iron and oxygen.
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