Elemental composition of artefacts found at the 10th Century Decorative Metalwork Centre near Nadarevo, Region of Targovishte, Bulgaria

The production centre for decorative metalwork near the village of Nadarevo, region of Targovishte is among the three early medieval metalwork centres in North-Eastern Bulgaria known to the modern archaeologists. The centres were all located in close vicinity to the medieval capital of Bulgaria, Preslav, so their period of activity could be precisely dated back to the first half and the middle of the 10th c. AD. In practice, there were two sources of raw materials used in the metalwork centre near Nadarevo, Region of Targovishte: one of them was reused obsolete or scrapped items, and the other one was the metal ingots introduced in the alloy. All castings however have similar but not constant composition, which varies in content and depends on the available raw materials. The analyses of the items helped us determine several basic alloys used for casting purposes, which can be defined as lead-tin bronze, tin-lead bronze or multi-component alloy.