I gave a talk at IOLI last year, in which I describe the first carbon dating of an actual lace year. I've just written that up for the next OIDFA Bulletin. It is probably the most technical article OIDFA has ever seen, and I'm not entirely certain how it will translate into French. But my purpose is to give a thorough review of how carbon dating can be applied to dating lace. I don't know where this figure of 10,000 years comes from (I can guess), but keep in mind that perfectly good results were obtained for the Shroud of Turin. There are many subtleties to carbon dating of recent items (meaning within about the past 500 years), but it is by no means a technique to be ignored. If you aren't an OIDFA member, you can become one and get the article :-) Laurie
-----Original Message----- From: Lorelei Halley [mailto:lhal...@bytemeusa.com] Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2017 6:40 PM To: 'Nancy Neff' <nancy.a.n...@gmail.com>; jeria...@aol.com; 'Arachne' <lace@arachne.com>; 'Laurie Waters' <lswaters...@comcast.net> Subject: RE: [lace] Dating Mechlin... Nancy >From my reading of historical geology I have the impression that radio carbon dating works very well for 10,000 years and somewhat older -- perfect for old stone age and Neolithic, but not good for recent. Burials around Stonehenge yes, lace no. And the loupe probably is the best portable tool, unless you have a tablet that can take pictures at very high resolution, and with enough storage space for the images. Lorelei -----Original Message----- From: owner-l...@arachne.com [mailto:owner-l...@arachne.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Neff Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2017 4:22 PM To: jeria...@aol.com; Arachne <lace@arachne.com>; Laurie Waters <lswaters...@comcast.net> Subject: [lace] Dating Mechlin... Jeri, Laurie Waters reported at IOLI that she paid the $500 or so to have a snippet of some lace radiocarbon-dated last year, with the latest, most precise technology. The lace was thought to be 16th or 17th century. The radiocarbon dating came out with a range that included the putative date, but had such a large possible error on the date that the conclusion was that radiocarbon-dating is not precise enough to be useful. And BTW, a jeweler's loupe is still very useful 'in the field' so to speak--there's lots of better tools in the lab, but at a dealer's stall, the loupe still can't be beat, or is there a convenient tool I'm overlooking? Nancy Connecticut, USA - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
