Missions

This young researcher contract, lasting 18 months, is part of the research project TrIsOr “Circulation and provenance of gold coins in medieval periods traced through the development of measurements of isotopes of lead, copper and iron in situ”. It is funded by the TIRIS program “Interdisciplinarity and impact of science for society” of the University of Toulouse. As part of this contract, the aim will be to acquire multi-isotope data on gold materials. The TrisOR project is led by the CNRS Toulouse laboratories TRACES (Sandrine Baron, UMR 5254) and GET (Franck Poitrasson, UMR 5563).

Activities

The recruited person will be responsible for conducting tests and developments to produce Pb, Cu and Fe isotopic measurements on gold matrices thanks to a femtosecond laser coupled with plasma mass spectrometers (type Triple Quad and MC-ICP-MS). The aim of these developments will to define the best coupling configuration to produce robust isotopic measurements while guaranteeing the integrity of archaeological materials. The instruments are hosted in the « I3 » plateforme (Inorganic Isotopy Imaging) at the Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour (UPPA). The samples corpus is constituted by two kinds of matrice : « in house » gold standards and ancient gold test coins. These developments will have to respect the rules of heritage materials preservation recommanded by curators. The recruited person will have to drive the developments, acquire and process the results, and then interpret them. Once the methodology(ies) will be validated, the aim is to promote these new results via publications and communicaitons in national and international congresses. If developments quickly prove positive, and the integrity of the materials well preserved, an opening to museum coins will be envisaged.

Skills

The recruited person must have PhD in geochemistry or physico-chemical properties of materials, with good knowledge on more traditional methods and tools for characterising archaeological materials (optical microscopy, SEM-EDS, microprobe, etc.) in order to really understand the challenges of analyses carried out on a micrometric scale. The recruited person should also have a good ability of in situ MC-ICP-MS data acquisition using a laser (nanosecond or femtosecond) coupled with a spectrometer.
The recruited person is expected to be able to process data from analytical developments in an interdisciplinary team environment. Proficiency in digital research tools is also required (databases, Excel software, drawing software, image processing, etc.). The position requires a good command of scientific English. Knowledge of the gold chaîne opératoire in ancient times would be appreciated.

Work Context

The recruited person will be based at the IPREM UMR 5254 laboratory (https://iprem.univ-pau.fr) at the Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour (UPPA). He/She will participate in workshops and/or seminars of the TrIsOR project project's interdisciplinary activities. A final activity report, detailing the work and activities carried out, will be requested at the end of the contract.
The recruited person will be supervised by Sandrine Baron and Franck Poitrasson, but will also benefit from the expertise and skills of Christophe Pécheyran and his team affiliated to the 'I3' platform.

Constraints and risks

Work with large instrumentation; Noisy work environment that may require hearing protection; Work with acidic solutions and neutral gases (Ar); Possible work outside office hours.