  This paper introduces the necessity and significance of the investigation of
cultural heritage objects. The multi-technique method is useful for the study
of cultural heritage objects, but a comprehensive analytical instrument is a
better choice since it can guarantee that different types of information are
always obtained from the same analytical point on the surface of cultural
heritage objects, which may be crucial for some situations. Thus, the X-ray
fluorescence (XRF)/X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF)/Raman
spectroscopy (RS) comprehensive analytical instruments are more and more widely
used to study cultural heritage objects. The two types of comprehensive
analytical instruments are discussed in detail and the XRF/XRD instruments are
further classified into different types on the basis of structure, type and
number of detectors. A new comprehensive analytical instrument prototype that
can perform XRF, XRD and RS measurements simultaneously has been successfully
developed by our team and the preliminary application has shown the analysis
performance and application potential. This overview contributes to better
understand the research progress and development tendency of comprehensive
analytical instruments for the study of cultural heritage objects. The new
comprehensive instruments will make researchers obtain more valuable
information on cultural heritage objects and further promote the study on
cultural heritage objects.
