Comparison of the performance of two handheld XRF instruments in the study of Roman tesserae from Cástulo (Linares, Spain)

Abstract

Cultural Heritage objects are frequently unavailable for transportation to laboratory facilities due to their size, location or local Cultural Heritage preservation regulations. The development of handheld XRF (hXRF) systems has, therefore, proven to be essential in the study of unmovable objects. In this study, two handheld XRF instruments—Bruker™ Tracer III SD® and Olympus™ Innov-X Delta Premium—were compared and evaluated using tesserae from the Mosaico de los Amores (Linares, Spain). Given their portability, the user-friendly nature of their operating systems and their overall performance, both hXRF instruments are highly recommended for in situ campaigns in Cultural Heritage studies. However, the detection limits calculated for each element point towards a better detection of low-Z elements when using the two-beam mode of the Olympus™ Innov-X Delta Premium hXRF. This study underlines the importance of systems that allow the analysis of the same point with analytical conditions optimized for different chemical elements.