Silver Finesse of Coinage of 2nd AH, from the collection of National Museum of Iran, Using XRF Method

Investigating coins reveals firsthand and immediate information to understand “past”. Enjoying technology and providing an interdisciplinary context can extract physical and chemical data, which potentially gain double relevant value- inaccessible in the absence of the technology. The data that achieved by such nondestructive analyzing methods result most valuable information which necessarily is absent in historical written sources or numismatics naturally lacks it, because of unknown archaeological provenance, comparing to in situ material culture. XRF portable device used to measure silver finesse of some Abbasid coins of 2nd AH century. The authors statistically studied the results that achieved quantitative-qualitatively. The consequent finesse, as weight percentage, indicates that finesse of capital city of Madinat al-Salam is distinguished and higher than silver finesse of coins from the other mints. Furthermore, the former has lower characteristic metal impurities, copper and lead, compering to the coins of mints other than capital city. One can suggest copper impurity as intentional addition to manipulate alloy finesse, whereas lead impurity as technical negligence and with no effect on finesse.