TECHNOLOGY WATCH: The latest in non-destructive manuscript analysis from
Chemical and Engineering News:
Analyzing The Dead Sea Scrolls' Provenance
Cultural Analysis: Scientists think that X-ray fluorescence could identify the geographical origin of these ancient texts
Sarah Everts
An X-ray fluorescence analytical technique may help scholars settle a decades-long archaeological debate: Were the multitude of Dead Sea Scroll texts written near the Dead Sea or just stored in caves nearby? This technique could provide an answer without harming the valuable Hebrew documents that have been degrading rapidly since their discovery in the 1940s and 50s, its developers say.
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This short piece links to the page for the technical article that presents the research:
3D Micro-XRF for cultural heritage objects – new analysis strategies for the investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Ioanna Mantouvalou , Timo Wolff , Oliver Hahn , Irene Rabin , Lars Lühl , Marcel Pagels , Wolfgang Malzer , and Birgit Kanngiesser
Anal. Chem., Just Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1021/ac2011262
Publication Date (Web): June 29, 2011
Copyright © 2011 American Chemical Society
Abstract
A combination of 3D Micro X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (3D Micro-XRF) and Micro-XRF was utilized for the investigation of a small collection of highly heterogeneous, partly degraded Dead Sea Scroll parchment samples from known excavation sites. The quantitative combination of the two techniques proves to be suitable for the identification of reliable marker elements which may be used for classification and provenance studies. With 3D Micro-XRF the three-dimensional nature, i.e. the depth resolved elemental composition as well as density variations, of the samples was investigated and bromine could be identified as a suitable marker element. It is shown through a comparison of quantitative and semi-quantitative values for the bromine content derived using both techniques that, for elements which are homogeneously distributed in the sample matrix, quantification with Micro-XRF using a one-layer model is feasible. Thus, the possibility for routine provenance studies using portable Micro-XRF instrumentation on a vast amount of samples, even on site, is obtained through this work.
This new technique sounds like it has promise to answer some difficult and controversial questions about the Dead Sea Scrolls.