Abstract
We propose a new method for dating ancient linen threads by inspecting their structural degradation by means of wide-angle X-ray scattering. X-ray dating of a textile sample can be performed nondestructively and on a submillimeter area, e.g., 0.2 × 0.5 mm2, exploiting new table-top X-ray micro-sources. A theoretical formula is derived for dating linen samples directly from wide-angle X-ray scattering measurements. Our preliminary results show that X-ray dating results are in agreement with other dating sources, such as the radiocarbon method and historical records, if some conditions are satisfied. Indeed, this new dating method can be applied only to threads not older than about thirty centuries because of the saturation of the structural degradation with age. Moreover, the method can be applied only on textiles in which cellulose degradation is mainly due by natural aging arising from thermal, hydrolytic, photolytic, photochemical, and oxidative processes. Analyses can be repeated several times on the same sample, which remains unaltered for other complementary characterization procedures. The proposed X-ray dating of some ancient linen fabrics opens the way to explore limits and potentialities of this new approach and to further develop a new dating method, alternative to the existing ones for specific applications in archeological studies.
Highlights
Textiles contain important archaeological information about everyday life, religion, art, technical culture, religion, and history of ancient peoples
By characterizing the textile threads with Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering (WAXS), we have investigated the possibility of extracting structural information suitable for deriving the age of ancient linen fabrics
Our analysis has shown that ancient linen threads that have suffered natural aging due to the oxidative, photochemical, and hydrolytic actions at room temperature and humidity over very long period of times of many centuries can be dated by WAXS characterization of the structural degradation of the cellulose fibers
Summary
Textiles contain important archaeological information about everyday life, religion, art, technical culture, religion, and history of ancient peoples. Ancient textiles are rare in archaeological sites compared to ceramic, metal, and wood artifacts because of their structural fragility under the action of humidity, temperature, fungi, microbes, and insects. Especially in Egypt or the Near East, there are many cases in which well-preserved textiles have been discovered in crypts and ground caves. Archeological textiles can comprise braided and woven structures from animal or vegetable fibers. Fragments of linen burial cloths indicate that weaving with flax was already used about 8000–9000 years ago [1]. Flax is a vegetable textile frequently used by populations of the Mediterranean geographical area. One reason is that linen fibers are the most resistant vegetable fibers to environmental aging agents (oxygen, humidity, light, etc.)
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