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Dear Sir/Madame,
Hi there can anyone help me to have a professional guess of the age of this Harihara Stature please, in Majapahit Kingdom time this type of stature was known as Brawijaya King Stature, thank you so much.

The composition of this bronze is Cu 78.55%, Zn 9.69%, Fe 3.42% and Ir 8.34%.

regards,
Nicholas.

Given that your sculpture is copper and zinc, it would be a brass alloy. Right?

I was interested to see the composition you posted, and how it might related to dating and locating a sculpture. Im no expert but i found some relevant articles:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00216-009-2938-y

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1922.24.2.02a00010/pdf


Iridium seems a bit odd, maybe that is a clue. Unless it is incidental to the process. If its used on purpose, it might help that iridium was discovered in 1803.

Dear Ethan,
Thank you so much for your valuable feedback, this will assist me tremendously in finding out the truth about this Harihara Stature.

best regards,
Nicholas.

Iridium is one of the two rarest elements in the earths crust. The current market price is $500 per troy ounce, which is low because of the limited demand, fountain pen points, spark plug tips, electrical contacts, etc. There are three universal geological dark clay layers associated with the disappearance of flora and fauna and meteor strikes (Alvarez Hypothesis). These are called mass extinction layers and are much higher in iridium than the norm. Meteors and meteorites are known to contain relatively high percentages of iridium.
A piece of a meteor or a meteorite was likely added to the copper-zinc melt without any knowledge of the presence of iridium and also produced the iron content. I did a term search in the ‘American Anthropologist’ (Ethan’s reference) for iridium which returned ‘Phrase not found’. So, it would not be an indicator of the age of the statue, as iridium would not have been available as an alloying element except for it’s concentration in a meteorite. Consider this: You probably have a unique figure with ‘value-added’ worth due to it’s content of iridium at $500 per troy ounce. You can calculate this or if you provide the weight I can do it for you. Regards, Jim

Dear Jim,
Thank you so much for your feedback, your valuable informations will complement the information provided by Ethan.

best regards,
Nicholas.

Nicholas,

What process was used in testing the composition of your statue? I have a censer I would like tested. My preference is for a nondestructive test.

Thanks!

Cheers,
Stan

I am curious to find out from the experts here as to how to accurately date bronze artefacts. I have read that there may be some scientific methods, such as the "electronanalytical method", but I have yet to come across any method that is based on the analysis of the metal composition.

Perhaps it may be possible to date an object by comparing its metal composition against a data base of proven and dated objects?

But then, I still find that somewhat problematic as I had personally visited a buddha statue making workshop in Thailand and saw that they would sometimes add broken pieces of metals from old or antique statues into the molten metal.

Coming back to these pictures of the Harihara statue. There are experts who point out that one can date a bronze statue by examining the patina of the statue. I am certainly not one of these experts but based on the pictures posted here, I cannot see patina on a statue that is supposed to be more than 500 years old (Majapahit).

Perhaps better pictures are needed. Even so, I think it is better to get the object into the hands of a qualified expert who would then be able to examine it first hand. Otherwise, what you get here are merely opinions based on your pictures and information about it's metallic composition which are not definitive in anyway in dating your statue.

Dear Michael,
Thank you very much for your kind reply and valuable information.

The equipment is called handheld XRF metal tester, it gives the composition of the alloy.

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