A06_09

Dating of wooden heritage objects in the Gliwice ¹⁴C and Mass Spectrometry Laboratory

Piotrowska N¹,  Kłusek M¹, Boroń P², Imiołczyk E³, Budziakowski M⁴, Poloczek A⁵, Poloczek-Imielińska A⁵, Jaksik M⁵

¹Silesian University of Technology, Institute of Physics, Gliwice, Poland, ²University of Silesia, Faculty of Humanities, Institute of History , Katowice, Poland, ³Museum of Upper Silesia, Department of Archaeology, Bytom, Poland, ⁴Cracow University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture, Cracow, Poland, ⁵RECO Konserwacja Zabytków Sp. z o.o., Katowice, Poland

Radiocarbon and dendrochronology are powerful tools to determine the age of wooden objects. Hereafter we present the three objects of high importance for cultural heritage in Poland, where both methods supported each other to enhance the reliability and increase the precision of age determination.

1.            Richly ornamented, ca. 60-cm-long wooden cane, was discovered in the 1990s during excavations on the market in Bytom, founded in 1254 under German law. The cane could have been used in court proceedings in the Germanic law circle (Rechtsstabe) and two cuts indicate the judge's practice to break the cane over the head of the accused at the time of the sentence.  Archaeological context imply 13th century AD, and ¹⁴C result corresponds perfectly with this time.

2.            A column, which supports the main altar in the St. Leonard Church in Lipnica Murowana (UNESCO World Heritage Site), was made of 4-m-tall oak trunk. Due to some carvings the local story said it was previously devoted to Światowid, a pagan idol. Our analysis excluded pre-Christian age, as the tree came from the middle of the 15th century or from a later period.

3.            Saint Lawrence Church in Bobrowniki is a unique wooden church with a complicated renovation history, and up to 5 layers of polychromic paintings, including some of high artistic value. We dated 3 samples from one of the original wooden boards from the presbytery, and by adding the information about dendrochronological sequence the calibrated age interval was spectacularly narrowed from 1650-1950 AD to AD 1731-1754.