title: The Ring Monstrance from the Loreto treasury in Prague: handheld Raman spectrometer for identification of gemstones.
abstract: A miniature lightweight portable Raman spectrometer and a palm-sized device allow for fast and unambiguous detection of common gemstones mounted in complex jewels. Here, complex religious artefacts and the Ring Monstrance from the Loreto treasury (Prague, Czech Republic; eighteenth century) were investigated. These discriminations are based on the very good correspondence of the wavenumbers of the strongest Raman bands of the minerals. Very short laser illumination times and efficient collection of scattered light were sufficient to obtain strong diagnostic Raman signals. The following minerals were documented: quartz and its varieties, beryl varieties (emerald), corundum varieties (sapphire), garnets (almandine, grossular), diamond as well as aragonite in pearls. Miniature Raman spectrometers can be recommended for common gemmological work as well as for mineralogical investigations of jewels and cultural heritage objects whenever the antiquities cannot be transported to a laboratory.This article is part of the themed issue 'Raman spectroscopy in art and archaeology'.
authors: Institute of Geochemistry, Mineralogy and Mineral Resources, Charles University, Albertov 6, Prague 2, Czech Republic jehlicka@natur.cuni.cz.
authors: Jan
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4294-876X
authors: J
authors: Jehlička
authors: Institute of Geochemistry, Mineralogy and Mineral Resources, Charles University, Albertov 6, Prague 2, Czech Republic.
authors: Adam
authors: A
authors: Culka
authors: Loreto, Prague 1, Czech Republic.
authors: Markéta
authors: M
authors: Baštová
authors: Loreto, Prague 1, Czech Republic.
authors: Petr
authors: P
authors: Bašta
authors: Jewish Museum, Prague 1, Czech Republic.
authors: Jaroslav
authors: J
authors: Kuntoš
keywords: Raman spectroscopy; cultural heritage; gemstones