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Radiocarbon Dating and Authentication of Ethnographic Objects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2016

P Richardin  and
N Gandolfo
P Richardin*
Affiliation:
Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF), Palais du Louvre, Porte des Lions, 14 quai François Mitterrand, 75001 Paris, France
N Gandolfo
Affiliation:
Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF), Palais du Louvre, Porte des Lions, 14 quai François Mitterrand, 75001 Paris, France
*
1 Corresponding author. Email: pascale.richardin@culture.gouv.fr.
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Abstract

This article describes the contribution of the radiocarbon dating method to the authentication of ethnographic objects on some significant examples coming from the collections of the Quai Branly Museum (Paris, France) and the Museum of African Arts (Marseilles, France). The first object is a bludgeon of hard wood from the Tupinambá ethnic group and thought to be brought from Brazil by Andre Thévet, cosmographer of King Francis I. This object supposedly dates to the 16th century. Another example concerns a series of architectural columns, brought from Peru in 1910 by Captain Paul Berthon from the archaeological site of Pachacamac, the largest sanctuary on the central coast of Peru. These pieces have induced a strong reaction in the French scientific community, which has described them as “some vulgar fake” because of a particular decoration and also their unique typology. We will present also the dating of 2 Tibetan textiles and 2 pre-Columbian ponchos made with feathers, which were not well documented. The last example concerns a decorated skull covered with a mosaic of blue and black turquoises and belonging to a civilization predating the Aztecs (AD 1300–1500). All these examples illustrate the decisive contribution of 14C dating to the authentication of museum objects that lack information about their origin.

Information

Type
Unusual Applications of 14C Measurement
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 55 , Issue 3: Proceedings of the 21st International Radiocarbon Conference (Part 2 of 2) , 2013 , pp. 1810 - 1818
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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