A methodological approach to estimate soil corrosivity for archaeological copper alloy artefacts

Characterization of soil corrosivity in archaeological sites is an important subject to understand the conservation conditions of archaeological bronze collections and helps conservators to prepare a conservation strategy for long term preservation of bronze objects. In this paper, a research approach is established to identify soil corrosivity in two archaeological sites and to find correlation between corrosion events and soil characterizations. Therefore, an analytical study was carried out to identify different factors of soil environment influencing corrosivity of the soil in two sites. Based on the results, measuring different factors such as chemical composition, pH, texture, soluble salts and water content and SOM displayed different soil environments in two archaeological sites. The results represent correlative relationship between corrosion mechanism and soil characteristics in these archaeological sites.