Study of the provenance of Belgian Merovingian garnets by PIXE at IPNAS cyclotron

Recent archaeological excavation in Belgium reveals one of the biggest Merovingian necropolis ever found in this country. This necropolis contains 436 tombs with a period of occupation of almost two centuries. Some of these tombs were very rich, especially two of them, and delivered an important funerary furniture. About 60 jewels inlaid with red garnets have been found, most of them of "cloisonne" style (namely about 450 garnets). The new extracted beam set-up of the IPNAS cyclotron (University of Liege, Belgium) has been improved in order to analyse by PIXE these garnets and try to determine their provenance. These analyses reveal that the garnets found in the necropolis of Grez-Doiceau are very homogeneous in composition (almandine garnets) and are coming almost from a unique source. These results have been compared to previous studies led in France during these past five years. This permits to identify the source of almandine garnet situated in India and to highlight differences in garnet supply between France and Belgium in Merovingian times. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.