Comparison of the Lead Isotopic Ratios in the Ancient Silver Mines of Iran and Provenance of Silver Vessels

The geochemical information of the old mines such as lead isotopic ratios has a crucial role in understanding the origin of minerals, especially the evaluation of metal sources. This study was conducted to obtain a pattern or map of the geochemical information of Iran's lead, zinc and silver reserves. The previous studies on the provenance of Sasanian silver vessels from Quri Qaleh cave, showed the lead isotopic ratio of these vessels conformed to Nakhlak mine, but since these examinations were not done on other old silver mines, it was not possible to make a definitive conclusion. Today, in the archaeometallurgical studies and the determination of the origin, multicollector- inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (MC-ICP-MS) is used. And since these studies are done on a global scale and the obtained information is recorded in the world wide database, it is necessary to use a similar method to carry out these experiments until the obtained information can be compared with each other. As the measurement of isotopes of elements has many applications in various sciences, especially in geological studies, the analysis of lead isotopes is used for dating of ores, provenance of metals and defining a geotectonic environment for ore deposits. Therefore, the results obtained from these studies on the desired mines could be used to calculate the isotopic ratios of lead for provenance and the source determination studies. In this study, the lead isotopic ratios of some of the ancient silver mines in Iran were compared. Comparing the results of analysis of lead isotope ratios for a number of ancient silver mines in Iran showed that the difference in lead isotope ratios of lead, zinc and silver reserves in the zone and geological axes of Iran is such that it can be used in the origin of ancient metalworking sites that mainly contain lead, zinc and silver minerals.