Preliminary Study of Corrosion Status on Bronzes Excavated from Qin Dynasty Tombs at Xinfeng Town in China

Abstract EN

From 2007 to 2008, many bronze wares of Qin Dynasty were excavated from tombs at Xinfeng town.

Being an important finding, these bronze wares attracted people’s attention, especially for their conservation.

Therefore, the corrosive products were explored by using Scanning Electron Microscope with Energy Dispersive X-ray Detector (SEM/EDS), X-Ray diffraction (XRD), and Raman spectroscopy (RM), which provided much valuable information on the conservation of these bronze wares.

According to tested results, the corrosive products of bronzes were found to be comprised of cuprite (Cu2O), covellite (CuS), lead carbonate (PbCO3), and malachite (CuCO3·Cu(OH)2).

Meantime, the multilayer corrosive structure was found in some samples due to the cracks in Cu2O layer which had formed many microchannels to promote the material migration.