A07_01

Radiocarbon Laboratories and the protection of Cultural Heritage–update and discussion

Jull A^1,2, Hajdas I³

¹University Of Arizona, Tucson, United States, ²Institute for Nuclear Research, Debrecen, Hungary, ³ETH-Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Some spectacular dating of famous antique objects such as the Shroud of Turin, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Vinland Map and Gospel of Judas demonstrate the power of the method for the detection of forgeries and verification of a heritage object’s true age. The antiquities trade now relies heavily on ¹⁴C analysis when art works and cultural objects are offered for sale. The provenance of such objects is important to avoid misunderstanding, fraudulent or inaccurate representation of ownership of art works. Currently, forty-seven radiocarbon laboratories listed here http://radiocarbon.webhost.uits.arizona.edu/node/11 have agreed to follow a protocol that requires verification of information on origin of cultural samples and antique objects submitted for ¹⁴C analysis. This paper will summarize the development of this initiative for the protection of cultural heritage and open a discussion within the community. 

A07_02

Last chance for carbon-14 chronology of Bolshoi Sintashta Kurgan: Mesopotamian ziggurat in the South Urals

Panyushkina I¹,  Milyutina T², Jull A³, Molnar M³, Cherkinsky A⁴, Agafonov L⁵

¹University of Arizona, Tucson, United States, ²Chelyabinsk Pedagogical University, Chelyabinsk, Russia, ³Isotope Climatology and Environmental Research Centre, Debrecen, Hungary, ⁴Center for Applied Isotope Studies, University of Georgia, Athens, United States , ⁵Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, Yekaterinburg, Russia

Research into the sociocultural complexity of the Eurasian steppe in the Bronze Age has been challenged by recent advances in the prehistorical calendar chronology derived from high-precision AMS carbon-14 measurements. The medley of archaeological cultures in the Southern Urals is well distinguished in space with the prominent typology of ancient ceramic traditions. For the past several decades, they have been thought to be disconnected chronologically. The recent chronological framework of the Bronze Age archeology has struggled with bewildering evidence of chronologically-overlapped and contemporaneous cultures that were previously viewed as a sequential series. New ¹⁴C dating results have uncovered a problem with past dating strategies and suggest a resampling of archaeological materials to address controversial interpretations of the Eurasian Steppe history. We resampled the crumbling ruins of Bolshoi Sintashta Kurgan (BSK) at Sintashta (Indo-Aryan outpost of Middle Bronze Age) and developed 18 new AMS dates from wood and slag. Sintashta as a prominent metallurgical, military and early urban center is dated to the interval 2100-1800 BCE.  BSK can be described as is large worship structure built in the shape of terraced compound resemble a Mesopotamian ziggurat. A Bayesian approach to calibration and re-analysis of the new and historical ¹⁴C BSK datasets showed that the worship structure was built between 1500 and 1300 BCE above the deteriorated tholos covering the chamber burial. The tholos chamber is possibly 300-500 years older than the worship structure above. The revised chronology indicates the continuity of the Sintashta, Fedorovo and Alakul cultures on the site.

A07_03

Inquisitive or Nefarious: The Case of Non-Academic Radiocarbon Customers 

Hundman B¹, M. Tate A¹

¹Directams, Bothell, United States

The people that seek the use of radiocarbon dating to gain information on objects of cultural heritage are as unique as the objects themselves. In addition to the traditional academic disciplines, “private” individuals, ranging from art dealers and auction houses to amateur scientists and average citizens, bring a myriad of intentions to their specific research questions. It is incumbent upon testing laboratories to assess the objects, and their owners, by identifying potentially vulnerable provenance locations, forgeries, and illicit acquisitions. In 2018, DirectAMS adopted the recommendations of the Radiocarbon community for the protection of objects of cultural heritage. By requiring inquirers to provide additional provenance and provenience for these items, we have been successful in facilitating genuine scientific exploration, while screening potentially objectionable materials from analysis. This presentation discusses the implementation of the ethical approach employed by DirectAMS to assess these core intentions and several case studies of material submitted for analysis. 

A07_04

Scoop on Poop (or You Are What You Eat): Radiocarbon Examination of Linen and Fecal Material from a Coptic Textile

Cox J¹,  Rowe M¹, Blinman E¹, Jones S¹, Welte C^2,3

¹Office Of Archaeological Studies, Center for New Mexico Archaeology, Santa Fe, United States, ²Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics, ETH Zűrich, HPK, H29, Otto-Stern-Weg 5, CH-8093 , Zürich,  Switzerland, ³Geological Institute, ETH Zürich, NO, Sonneggstrasse 5, CH-8092 , Zürich,  Switzerland

A textile was provided to the Office of Archaeological Studies Plasma Oxidation Laboratory to determine if it was possibly of Coptic age. In the process of examining the material, feces of insect larvae (likely clothes moths) were found between the acrylic sheets that were placed on either side of the textile for preservation and presentation purposes. The insect infestation was relatively modern (within the last 15-20 years). The excrement stood out as the insects weren’t able to metabolize the dyes in the textile thus leaving blue and orange pellets.

A single linen fiber was chosen from the textile for dating purposes using an oxidizing plasma to collect enough CO₂ gas for dating before being sent to ETH-Zürich to be processed with a MICADAS AMS system. In addition, the fecal material was oxidized in an oxygen plasma. Multiple carbon samples were collected with no visible change of the fiber itself, but the pellets lost the surface dye color during the oxidation process, leaving the base linen color.

Regular cleaning procedures were followed with initial oxygen plasmas used to clean the chamber until <0.5 µg of carbon were present. This was followed by argon plasmas until <0.5 µg of carbon were present. Finally, oxygen plasmas were run to produce enough CO₂ for measurement purposes (20-100 µg carbon) to be analyzed at ETH-Zürich.

The agreement between the radiocarbon dates from the linen and the fecal matter indicate that no apparent modern day contamination occurred during the metabolization process of the larvae.

A07_05

Carbon-14 chronology of the Golden Horde in Kazakhstan

Panyushkina I¹,  Usmanova E², Uksenbay K³, Jull T^1,4, Molnar M⁴, Varga T⁴

¹University of Arizona, Tucson, United States, ²Buketov Karaganda University, Kraganda, Kazakhstan , ³ABDI Institute for Humanitarian Studies , Almaty, Kazakhstan, ⁴Isotope Climatology and Environmental Research Centre, Debrecene , Hungary

The historiography of the Golden Horde (1221–1438 CE), the successor of the Mongol World Empire ruled by the Chinggisids, is not well-defined and bears many contradictories. We located 34 burial complexes of Islamic tradition attributed to the Golden Horde with folk and legends in the Ulytau Mountains of Kazakhstan, which is translated from Turk languages as a “Grand Place of Ancestors”.  The burial rites of Mongol nobility remained the same throughout the Mongol Empire and were under the sacred rules of Tengri. The royal cemetery was forbidden ground with an undisclosed grave. The Chinggis funeral tradition excluded a mausoleum, although most of the known Mongol burials today are enclosed in the Islamic Mausoleums. Since Islam became the official religion of the Golden Horde after 1313 AD, we propose high-resolution carbon-14 measurements for the Golden Horde mausoleums to link historical evidence and the calendar chronology of medieval architecture in Kazakhstan. We present the results on ¹⁴C dating of two mausoleums: Joichi Khan, the oldest son of Chinggis Khan, died in 1225 CE and Alasha Khan lived in the early 15th century and was a highly acclaimed tribal leader of Kazakhs, Karakalpaks, Kirghiz, Bashkirs, Nogays, and Tatars. The dating argues that the Jochi Khan mausoleum was built about 100 years after the death of Jochi and renovated at least once in the mid-14th century. The Alasha-Khan Mausoleum is most likely built ca. 1315-1360 CE. Historical attribution of both mausoleums does not concur with the age of the building materials.

A07_P01

Dating the Egyptian mummies curated at the University of Tartu Art Museum collections

Oras E¹,  Tõrv M¹, Rannamäe E¹, Anderson J²

¹University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia, ²University of Tartu Museum, Tartu, Estonia

Two ancient child mummies accompanied by a bird and a dog mummy are exhibited at the University of Tartu Art Museum, Estonia. According to museum records the mummies were brought to Estonia from Egypt by a young Baltic-German scholar and voyager Otto Friedrich von Richter in the early 19th century. Yet, their exact provenance and date was unknown. An interdisciplinary team of experts was summoned to study these unique heritage objects using modern analytical methods, including radiocarbon dating. To establish the age of these objects and their temporal relation to each other, the total of eight samples were AMS dated: four from human and four from animal mummies. The AMS dates and further modelling allowed identifying the chronological sequence of the two boy mummies showing that they were not contemporaneous. The animal mummies displayed as accompanying burial goods at the exhibition turned out to be earlier than the human specimens. Hence, we could conclude that there is no contemporaneous connection between the animal and human mummies. Furthermore, our multiple sampling approach enabled us to detect some considerable dating discrepancies between different sample types from the same object. Our study highlights the fruitfulness of combining thorough scientific expertise and multi-analytical research methods when it comes to disentangling curated heritage objects with intricate secondary history. We also exemplify the relevance of multi-proxy and multi-sample approaches for analysing complex heritage items, allowing to display a more truthful picture of the past for the research communities as well as the wider public. 

A07_P02

Radiocarbon dating of the Church of St. Margaret of Antioch in Kopčany (Slovakia): International consortium results

Povinec P¹,  Kontuľ I¹, Cherkinsky A², Hajdas I³, Gu Y^3,4, Jull A^5,6,7, Lupták T⁸, Mihály M⁶, Steier P⁹, Svetlik I¹⁰

¹Comenius University, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics , Bratislava, Slovakia, ²University of Georgia, Center for Applied Isotope Studies, Athens, USA, ³ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland, ⁴Nanjing University, School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing, China, ⁵University of Arizona, Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, Tucson, USA, ⁶Institute for Nuclear Research, INTERACT Centre, Debrecen,  Hungary, ⁷University of Arizona, Department of Geosciences,  Tucson, USA, ⁸Restauro, s.r.o., Bratislava, Slovakia, ⁹University of Vienna, VERA Laboratory, Vienna, Austria, ¹⁰Czech Academy of Sciences, Nuclear Physics Institute, Prague, Czech Republic

An international consortium of radiocarbon laboratories was established to date the origin of the Church of St. Margaret of Antioch in Kopčany (Slovakia), because its age was not well established in previous investigations. Altogether, 19 samples of wood, charcoal, mortar and plaster were analyzed. The ¹⁴C results obtained from the different laboratories as well as between the different sample types were in reasonably agreement, resulting in a ¹⁴C calibrated age of 780–870 AD (94% probability) for the Church. Although the ¹⁴C results have very good precision, the specific plateau-shape of the calibration curve in this period caused the wide range of the calibrated age. The probability distribution from OxCal calibration shows, however, that about 80% of the probability distribution lies in the period before 863 AD, implying that the Church could have been constructed before the arrival of Constantine (St. Cyril) and St. Methodius to Great Moravia. The Church thus represents, together with the St. Georges’s Rotunda in Nitrianska Blatnica, probably the oldest standing purpose-built Christian church in the eastern part of Central Europe.