From PGAA to PGAI: from bulk analysis to elemental mapping

When investigating a valuable artistic object, the first and foremost requirement is to keep it intact. Neutrons, elemental particles having zero electric charge can enter deep into the irradiated material, and they can undergo different nuclear interactions, without causing any damage of artefacts. Both the neutron capturebased methods (i. e. Neutron Tomography - NT, Neutron Activation Analysis - NAA, Prompt Gamma Activation Analysis - PGAA and Neutron Resonance Capture Analysis - NRCA) and the neutron scattering-based methods (i. e. Time of Flight Neutron Diffraction - TOF-ND and Small Angle Neutron Scattering - SANS) have been previously applied to archaeometric research. In 2006, a new European Commission funded project with ten collaborators, called Ancient Charm, was launched with the aim of combining the above mentioned neutron based methods to achieve 3-D imaging and elemental mapping of museum objects with complex structures. The first experiments to develop bulk elemental PGAA towards elemental mapping and imaging of complex objects (i. e. to work out PGAI) will be attempted at the Institute of Isotopes, on the 5·107 n/cm2·s1 cold neutron beam of the Budapest Research Reactor. Representative archaeological objects for investigations have been chosen from the collections of the Hungarian National Museum, Villa Adriana near Rome, and the National Museum for Antiquities of Leiden.