The Effects of Possible Contamination on the Radiocarbon Dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls II
Empirical Methods to Remove Castor Oil and Suggestions for Redating
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9244646 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kaare Lund Rasmussen (0000-0001-9575-868X), Johannes Van Der Plicht (0000-0003-4298-7037), Gregory Doudna, Frederik Nielsen, Peter Højrup, Erling Halfdan Stenby, Carl Th Pedersen |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 1005-1022 |
| Publication date | 2009-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Radiocarbon (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0033-8222 • E-ISSN: 1945-5755 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0033822200034081 |
| OpenAlex | W1868990103 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 11 |
While kept at the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem, many Dead Sea Scroll fragments were exposed to castor oil by the original team of editors in the course of cleaning the parchments. Castor oil must be regarded as a serious contaminant in relation to radiocarbon dating. If modern castor oil is present and is not removed prior to dating, the 14 C dates will be skewed artificially towards modern values. In Rasmussen et al. (2001), it was shown that the standard AAA pretreatment procedure used in the 2 previous studies dating Dead Sea Scroll samples (Bonani et al. 1992; Jull et al. 1995) is not capable of removing castor oil from parchment samples. In the present work, we show that it is unlikely that castor oil reacts with the amino acids of the parchment proteins, a finding which leaves open the possibility of devising a cleaning method that can effectively remove castor oil. We then present 3 different pretreatment protocols designed to effectively remove castor oil from parchment samples. These involve 3 different cleaning techniques: extraction with supercritical CO 2 , ultrasound cleaning, and Soxhlet extraction—each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Our data show that the protocol involving Soxhlet extraction is the best suited for the purpose of decontaminating the Dead Sea Scrolls, and we recommend that this protocol be used in further attempts to 14 C date the Dead Sea Scrolls. If such an attempt is decided on by the proper authorities, we propose a list of Scroll texts, which we suggest be redated in order to validate the 14 C dates done earlier by Bonani et al. (1992) and Jull et al. (1995)
Archaeology · Biblical studies · Castor oil · Chromatography · Dead sea · Dead Sea Scrolls · Hebrew Bible · Parchment · Radiocarbon dating · Scroll · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Chemistry · Cultural Heritage Materials Analysis · Environmental Science · History · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology · Geology · Organic Chemistry
History and Memory in the Dead Sea Scrolls
An instructive inter-laboratory comparison
Chronologies in wood and resin
Radiocarbon Dating of Historical Parchments
Ramped pyroxidation radiocarbon dating of a preservative contaminated early medieval wooden bowl
Experimental Observations on Processing Leather, Skin, and Parchment for Radiocarbon Dating
On the Authenticity of a Relic
An Independent Assessment of Uncertainty for Radiocarbon Analysis With the New Generation High-Yield Accelerator Mass Spectrometers
Volumes of Worth—delimiting the Sample Size for Radiocarbon Dating of Parchment
Intcal04 Terrestrial Radiocarbon Age Calibration, 0–26 Cal Kyr BP
Reply to Israel Carmi (2002)
Are the 14 C Dates of the Dead Sea Scrolls Affected by Castor Oil Contamination
Radiocarbon Dating of Scrolls and Linen Fragments from the Judean Desert
The Effects of Possible Contamination on the Radiocarbon Dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls I
Radiocarbon Dating of Fourteen Dead Sea Scrolls
| Citations per year | 0.64 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2012 - 2024 (13) |
| Highly cited | No |