Investigations on a brass armour: Authentic or forgery?

A copper-based armour, supposedly excavated in Eastern Georgia and tentatively dated to the I–II century AD, was investigated with the aim of checking its authenticity. The finding consisted of several pieces, mostly in a good state of conservation: helmet, lorica musculata (i.e. muscled cuirass), forearm guards, pterygies (covering the lower body and thighs), shin greaves and a spear tip. The combination of conventional metallography with in situ and non-destructive investigations (including Time of Flight Neutron Diffraction (ToF-ND)) on the front of the lorica, on one of the pterygies and on the spear tip showed that the composition and microstructure of the armour was not fully homogeneous. However, the results from the muscled cuirass are fairly coherent and raise suspicion about the authenticity of the piece, namely because of the (i) presence of metallic Al in the alloy, in solid solution with Cu, (ii) prevalence of an as-cast microstructure, which lead to a heavy weight as well to the need for a high amount of metal by comparison to hammered sheet and (iii) presence of an artificial patina, combined with earthy deposits which are not explainable if the original patina was removed before artificial patination for aesthetical reasons.