Alexandria may be named after its famous founder, but cities have lined Egypt’s northern coast long before Alexander the Great’s armies conquered. Regularly, archaeologists and researchers pull ancient artefacts from Abu Qir Bay, near Alexandria, and use nuclear techniques and technologies to study and date them.
One such researcher is Dina Atwa, from the Grand Egyptian Museum’s Conservation Centre. Collaborating with the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in France and the Elettra Synchrotron facility in Italy, she used synchrotron radiation to study a set of eight waterlogged ancient coins — a field of study called archaeometallurgy. Without damaging the coins, X-rays from the synchrotrons revealed to Atwa details about the coins’ composition, how they were made, and the processes of corrosion they have undergone. The coins were from the country’s Ptolemaic era (305 BCE to 30 BCE), the period following Alexander’s conquest.
Atwa was one of 125 experts invited to Vienna, Austria, this summer to present research at the IAEA Workshop on Innovative Approaches of Accelerator Science and Technology for Sustainable Heritage Management — a four-day physical and virtual gathering focused on sharing information, techniques and opportunities for collaboration in the preservation and understanding of cultural heritage.
“Accelerator technologies can be used to study cultural heritage objects and provide quantitative data on their age, history, manufacturing processes and composition,” said Aliz Simon, the organizer of the workshop and an IAEA nuclear physicist specializing in accelerators. She leads the Agency’s work in artefact characterization: “With nuclear techniques, we can study historical objects to understand our past and preserve them for the future. By bringing researchers together at this workshop, we’re fostering a community of expertise in nuclear techniques to advance archaeology, anthropology and forensics science towards sustainable heritage management around the world.”
In May, the IAEA released an edition of its quarterly flagship magazine, the IAEA Bulletin, focused on applications of accelerators and other sources of ionizing radiation, highlighting the use of such technologies in both historical artefact characterization and preservation, as well as detecting fraudulent art pieces.
Accelerator technologies can be used to study cultural heritage objects and provide quantitative data on their age, history, manufacturing processes and composition.
