There is this Gold Buddha in thailand that they say is made of pure gold. They say this thing weighs over 5 tons. Does anyone else believe this thing might be just Gold plated? How do they know the "whole" thing is pure gold? Wouldnt they have to melt it down to make sure? For those of you that dont know the story, they found this Gold buddha by accident...it was covered in cement for 100s of years and when some workers tried to move it but they chipped the thing and saw there was gold underneath the cement. So if anybody knows how they know for sure its pure gold, please do tell.
i'm not aware of what assaying entails, but they could theoretically exclude the possibility that it's solid gold by submerging it in water and dividing volume by mass