The process of blanching in french mints (15th-16th centuries): archeometrical and experimental approach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/aem.2011.v41.i2.368Keywords:
mint, minting coinage, blanching, experimental archaeologyAbstract
In the late nineties, excavations in La Rochelle (France) have discovered the remains of a royal mint of the sixteenth century. This discovery enabled the collection of artefacts directly related to the manufacture of coins. The exceptional corpus gathered is the subject of a study of the chaîne opératoire of coining in the medieval time. Special attention is paid to an operation which takes place before the strike: the blanching of blanks. Well documented in ancient times, the samples from La Rochelle offer the opportunity to study this process during the medieval period and in a royal mint. In addition, thanks to reconstitution experiments, it is possible to define a reaction mechanism that helps to understand our historical observations.
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