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Making Gold-Mercury Amalgam: the Evidence for Gilding From Southampton

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Justine Bayley  and
Andy Russel
Justine Bayley
Affiliation:
English Heritage, Fort Cumberland, Eastney, Portsmouth PO4 9LD, UK. E-mail: .
Andy Russel
Affiliation:
Southampton Archaeology, Southampton City Council, 93 French Street, Southampton SO14 2AT, UK. E-mail: .
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Abstract

Mercury gilding is a well-known decorative technique that was applied to both silver and a range of copper alloys from the third century AD until the introduction of electroplating in the nineteenth century. The process is well understood but, until recently, there has been no good archaeological evidence for it. Excavations in Southampton have discovered two rather different objects that were used to produce gold-mercury amalgam, the first stage in mercury gilding. One is a block of stone and the other a reused amphora sherd. The stone comes from a ninth-century context, while the amphora sherd's findspot is less well dated: it could have been reused in the late Roman or the Saxon period.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 88 , September 2008 , pp. 37 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 2008

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