New effort to carbon date the DSS

A NEW EFFORT to carbon date the Dead Sea Scrolls:

International researchers find method to date Dead Sea Scrolls
2010-01-21 08:38 BJT

STOCKHOLM, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- A Danish archaeochemist and an international team of researchers have found a way to enable scientists to precisely date the Dead Sea Scrolls, according to reports reaching here from Copenhagen on Wednesday.

"For more than a decade we've been saying that there was no point in dating the scrolls before we found a method to remove the oil. Now we have found just such a method," Kaare Lund Rasmussen, Associate Professor and Archaeochemist of the University of Southern Denmark, was quoted as saying by the Danish newspaper Politiken online.

Treatment of the scrolls included being spread out using plant oil, which in turn made precise carbon dating of the scrolls almost impossible, said Politiken.

The article notes that some of the Scrolls were carbon dated in the 1990s, but this new project aims to remove the oil to get a more accurate dating.