A03_P20

AMS, Historical and Archaeological Dating in the Oponice Castle 

Styková B^1,3, Styk M², Světlík I¹, Megisová N¹, Petrová M¹, Repka D²

¹Department Of Radiation Dosimetry, Nuclear Physics Institute CAS, Řež - Husinec, Czech Republic, ²Department of Archaeology Faculty of Arts, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Nitra, Slovakia, ³Regional centre Banská Bystrica,The Monument Board of the Slovak Republic, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia

The 5th season of Oponice castle excavation in 2022 was located in the lower castle´s courtyard. There was discovered original clay floor strongly burned with charred plank and a rectangular stone-brick structure laying on it. This structure has collapsed upper part with a fallen low brick arc.  In whole space were also documented numerous stove tiles fragments same as the discovery of one clay mould for the production of front heating walls of chamber tiles. Based on it this structure was identified as a pottery kiln dated to the second half of the 16th till the first half of the 17th century AD by the findings from excavated layer, which was probably related to kiln destruction. At the same time, the written sources mention big fire in 1645 caused the end of the castle. Different types of samples were collected for AMS dating to CRL (Czech Radiocarbon Laboratory) in Prague. This sampling was focused on site formation process determination of pottery kiln use and the way of its destruction. Applying of Bayesian analysis tent to improve overall dating and historical events recreating. The results and methodology of the radiocarbon dating will be presented in poster form.