Posted by Erol Abit on June 24, 1999 at 04:31:29:
Yon Bard wrote these
Scientific methods. (chemical and C14 tests)
Provenance.
Woven-in dates.
Pictorial records.
Ethnographic studies.
Structural and esthetic considerations.
All these are done by method of comparison which has to take somethings as references except "woven-in-dates" which is based on believing. Actually, whole science is based on comparison if we remember what it takes a reference, i.e a virtual motionless star in somewhere in the universe. Anyways, this is another story..
As an alternative comparison method, I can suggest another method right now (but its accuracy must be tested). Tracing the changes in physical properties", for example its solar radiation properties can be another method. Unlike the methods above where the older or similar age objects are used as references, "a virtual new object" can be chosen as a reference in this method. All the tools needed are a relatively much cheaper infrared camera and a simple computational software. All characteristics of our reference of virtual object can be known very easily. What is virtual object? Consider the old rug we want to know its age was woven right today with the same materials, colors, etc. This is our virtual reference whose all properties can be computed easily. The next thing to do is to do few nondestructive experiments (for ex. infrared camera) on the old rug to have an idea about its radiation emissivity parameter. Now, we know the magnitudes of a property of the rug in the year of woven and that of it today. An interolation following some theoretical and/or emphirical relations is the last job to be done. However, this can not be as accurate as C14 but much cheaper than it after the set-up is once established. When infrared camera becomes more cheaper so that anyone can buy for home, by keeping the rug under sun light for some hours, and using a friendly software, anyone may be able to determine the age of a rug in some accuracy range. This was an attempt to cover the subject on "what else can be don"..
Regards,
Erol