00:00.00 archaeoteacup Welcome back everyone so I had a little look through the scrolls because before the break we came up with a potential issue in that our colleagues while they're very nice. Maybe they look particularly trustworthy. And how could we tell for sure whether this stuff that they claim to have brought back from the past is indeed from the past and not just something that they've knocked up at a shop along the corner. Ah so after having looked through the scrolls I have come up with a couple of different ideas but I was wondering as if you had any ideas First off off the top of your head that you might be able to. 00:31.54 Ashleigh Airey Um. 00:32.46 archaeoteacup Apply to this material to to have a look. 00:34.33 Ashleigh Airey Well, what kind of stuff have they brought back what? what objects? What are effectively brought. 00:41.88 archaeoteacup So they have for example, a lovely wooden statue which is ah would never have survived in the archeological record because wood very rarely preserves from this particular time period. Um, it's from allegedly a neolithic settlement North of Scotland. 00:55.47 Ashleigh Airey Blue. 00:58.85 archaeoteacup So you know, maybe it could have survived I guess in certain conditions but probably not so that's why they decided to bring it back with them. It's a little a little carving of a a figure of some sort made from wood. Um, they also have I'm just checking what I have um. They also have ah another statue they were on a sort of statue statue mission. It seems because they have another statue but this one comes from the Mediterranean allegedly from ancient Greece which is a lovely little marble statue of some kind of goddess or god when unsure exactly which one it is at this particular moment in time. And what else do we have? We also have a little picture which is from significantly more recent this was brought back from kind of late medieval period. But it's a little painted picture also of a figure but it's sort of very. Artistically painted so it's hard to tell exactly who this figure might be so those are the kind of 3 main objects that that I would say would stand out at you in this respect. 02:02.33 Ashleigh Airey Okay, okay, okay so the word I would think maybe you could look at the type of word that you that it's made out of I'm thinking the Balhoulish figure that's immediately immediately. What I thought of um I think that's six the Balhoulish figure. 02:13.66 archaeoteacup About the word about the word. Oh tell be more. 02:19.90 Ashleigh Airey Well, that comes from. It's a female carving. They think anyway it but it date from buts ah 600 b c e um, and it was found in balulish in Scotland um. And it immediately was what major what I thought so I thought maybe you could look at the type of wood it was and if that tree even grows in that area at the time. What the landscape was so that you could maybe look at that. Obviously if you were doing when we talked about ah dentroronology. But that's quite difficult if you've literally taken a tree. 02:38.74 archaeoteacup Um, good point. 02:52.70 archaeoteacup Right? yeah. 02:53.24 Ashleigh Airey I married um the the other one was a painting too. There was a painting you could get and a little marble statue. So the painting you could look at the pigments and what are theyre made out of obviously this is well you can still. 02:57.67 archaeoteacup Does a little painting a little marble statue. Yeah. 03:06.33 archaeoteacup Eleventh. 03:10.38 Ashleigh Airey Perhaps make these. But if there's a certain species of beetle Maybe that they've got like a blue from or something that's no longer available or something. That's what I would go for immediately trying to kind of look at what was around in the landscape the type of species of trees and. And what kind of rock is there What kind of wood is there for each one and try and kind of place it within that context First, That's what I would call for but it would be really difficult. 03:29.13 archaeoteacup Does it. 03:37.52 archaeoteacup Ah, her. 03:42.97 archaeoteacup It would and I guess that it would heart heart Sorry that was a really bad pun. Um, ah so funny. Ah sorry everyone as you can probably hear both us and I are recovering from from cost. So I think that. 03:47.19 Ashleigh Airey You so funny. So me. 03:59.43 Ashleigh Airey Um, yes. 04:00.85 archaeoteacup Ah, we're still slightly delirious from ah from our illnesses. But so I indeed according to the scrolls quiet a lot of those ideas would indeed be ah, be very useful to have a look. So for example, looking at the the material or the content. So obviously indeed if if a wooden artifact was made from a tree and that. Particular tree did not grow in Scotland at that time then you could pretty much say no or I guess alternatively that they could claim or its was you know carved elsewhere and then traded. Um, so ah, which indeed and I mean how ah again from I'm i'm. 04:30.34 Ashleigh Airey And that's why I was just thinking. 04:39.23 archaeoteacup Using all your knowledge as if feels like just dash. How do you actually know what kind of trees like what the landscape looked like in the past and what kind of trees were there, etc. 04:45.59 Ashleigh Airey Well this this is not necessarily field stuff I mean it's more land. Well you could look at like landscape archeology. You can look at the what you know from records. 04:59.90 archaeoteacup That. 05:00.48 Ashleigh Airey From archeological other archaeological investigations of what wood was around what they were making stuff out of especially if you're using or going to a site that's um, anaerobic. So you you know? Pete um, any kind of finger, especially like brock sites are quite good for them if I think Klatall Broch and Scotland was very good for finding a lot of organic matter wood wooden balls wooden beams platforms panels wood carving work as well anywhere that basically doesn't have any air. Um, you can look at. What's going on there. You can look at climate change um over the period as well. We know that from the mesolithic pretty much because of the sterrega slide which was a big um underwater earthquake and caused mass tsunami around the world and would have hit. In the mesolithic and you wouldn't have had a clue what was coming I was think about it was probably on this pressure on the coast of Scotland and like Keith Ness and stuff they would have been completely exposed. Um, and so you can look at that and we know that from that point um the sea levels sort of rise so you can look at where the site is. 05:53.35 archaeoteacup Ah, yeah God of yeah. 06:08.37 Ashleigh Airey It would it be underwater where it wouldn't and is it moved as it shifted erosion. So it's a lot of stuff about that looking at the landscape but um, that's mostly to do if you're on the field you know for a field archaeologist Mostly if it's already sort of done. 06:14.59 archaeoteacup Leave. 06:24.96 archaeoteacup The. 06:26.70 Ashleigh Airey For you in some ways because you turn up and you like especially if you're working commercial archaeology then it's already kind of you've got this field and you need to figure out so look at the soil that you have you have sand It's usually because it was a ah beach site of sometime and it's moved Inland look at the. 06:39.19 archaeoteacup Fact yeah. 06:45.10 Ashleigh Airey That Especially if there's graves the context of what's in them shells and stuff like that as well. So yeah, it's lots of different stuff. Um, you can. 06:52.29 archaeoteacup Um, ah, well actually if people are interested in hearing more about. For example, the post excavation staff and the bio archeological things you can do to work out things listen to our last couple of episodes because we had a specialist bio Archeologist jen. 07:04.36 Ashleigh Airey Um, had I with me. 07:06.94 archaeoteacup Ah, who talks a little bit about about that kind of thing I think if I remember correctly it's it's It's only been a few weeks. Yeah, yeah, right? Yeah yeah, his I about it. That's the word. Yeah, so. 07:10.41 Ashleigh Airey No yes, she add soon? Yeah, she know she absolutely does. She's a bioaria over an arch your botanist And yeah, yeah, and she looks at lots of different organic matters as well. I've seen her a few times. 07:25.52 archaeoteacup Yeah. 07:28.63 Ashleigh Airey Counting hazel notes and lots of different nuts and seeds. 07:32.69 archaeoteacup Yeah, but indeed so so you know materials that would not have been there. Um, so for example, would different kinds of soil types. Maybe for something like pottery. You might be able to see what kind of soil was used or anything. Um, you also have for example, you mentioned the painting So there's. 07:42.96 Ashleigh Airey Yeah. 07:49.13 archaeoteacup Lots and lots of famous examples of paintings being discovered as fakes because for example, 1 of the paints was made from the wrong chemical component that actually was only introduced to painting you know, 2 centuries later or something which do you happen to remember I don't know if you did that it's part of you I I had a whole thing about. 07:51.57 Ashleigh Airey Oh. 08:08.22 archaeoteacup Artifacts Analysis Did you did you? ah do you know of any techniques or methods or and ah analysis things that ah can be used to look at chemical components. 08:22.26 Ashleigh Airey Well, you mean like the chemical component of like carbon or you mean him in painting. Especially yeah, but you can look you can look at lots of different chemical components I mean I'm not ah ah more the artsy side. 08:26.16 archaeoteacup That too. But which. 08:39.47 archaeoteacup Ah, do you do have a different kind of chemical. Well so you have a couple of different methods. You can use to look at various kinds of kind of chemical components indeed and to see what what the material is actually made of um so. 08:42.99 Ashleigh Airey Um. 08:54.47 archaeoteacup You have invasive methods aka things that will destroy part of the artifact and you have non-invasive methods. So The the most common ones that I sort of found and read up about with for example, X-ray Fluorescence where you have an object is bombarded with x-rays. That then makes the material react and emit a secondary X-ray like a bounce back thing which is known as fluorescence and then by measuring those secondary X-rays you can work out the radiation of the atoms and therefore work backwards a little bit using your lovely periodic table to work out what elements they are and therefore you can see the chemical composition. Of the material. So it's almost a bit like I don't know if you've seen those videos or if you've experienced yourself you know Bioluminescent. So and you splash water and then it lights up and everything it's sort of I similar so you kind of ah ah, create creating a reaction that then gives something back which means that basically you just have to point something at the painting and it. Measures it and that's quite Nice. You can also destroy part of the painting and by Destroy I mean like minimal like Millimeter Wide. You know things. Ah, for example, there's mass spectrometry which again there seems to be a lot of bombarding going on um in these methods because again you bombard the ah the sample. 09:52.72 Ashleigh Airey Tiny. 10:08.38 archaeoteacup Ah, you ionize it by bombarding it with Electrons. So therefore the ion which is an electrified atom bounces around all over the place you can measure them through that and work out from the master charge Ratio. You can then see how much they weighed before the ionization and then again work backwards with your periodic table. To see what element they represent and so the chemical composition. So. It's basically a lot of you have to know all of the like all of the little equations and all of the measurements beforehand so you can sort of work backwards. But it's There's quite a lot of different ways of of doing that and of of working out these things which are quite useful. Another point I wanted to point out about the materials and content is that sometimes written content as Well. I found some cool examples about fakes which had been written and that it they found out they were fakes because the author knew something that they couldn't have known at that point in time which yeah. 10:49.31 Ashleigh Airey Um. 11:02.48 archaeoteacup Baby they were time travelers and they came forward to the future who does so that was quite cool so indeed materials and content. Um I have 2 other potential points to look at I don't know if you could guess either of them. 11:05.98 Ashleigh Airey That's very cool, but. 11:18.30 Ashleigh Airey Well I think you you would probably look at the style especially if it's like the marble carving because that's quite hard to to date. So stylistically um, you'd look at it. But also I would look at again if there's any well, especially if it's a greek. 11:22.80 archaeoteacup The. 11:36.22 Ashleigh Airey Um, statue or sculpture because usually they're painted but we just don't see that so you would look at the pigmentation I think you could do some pigment samples and some chemical analysis on that again, similar to the painting. 11:40.61 archaeoteacup True Yeah, that. 11:50.70 archaeoteacup Put it. 11:52.76 Ashleigh Airey Um, you would look at the style of it. So what kind of style is it is it. There's lots of different greek styles that they we often think of it just as like the one everyone looks like into nice but there's lots of different ones that come from different um areas. 12:02.65 archaeoteacup The at will. 12:10.32 Ashleigh Airey So you could look at that as well and kind of figure out that and you could also I mean for the wood you could do carbon but the carbon dating wouldn't work because of the half-life. 12:20.83 archaeoteacup That's a good point which do you are you able to talk a little bit more about that. Do you want me talk about that with my notes from my think are you able you have to talk about that good kick it. 12:27.29 Ashleigh Airey Um, as yeah. 12:29.91 Ashleigh Airey Ah I'm fine to talk about radiocarbon looting and so essentially everything that is living has carbon and it's ah so we we have a constant supply of carbon we do and would cows um home most of. But everything has a halflife. So basically when we die um every single year it's of Halfs. Essentially I believe and so that's the halflife of carbon 14 is you can do it cut all that out. You can do it. But. 13:01.97 archaeoteacup Yeah, it okay that so indeed sorry I just got that time a little bit that and then so yes, indeed you're right as no so indeed exactly so the half you have this halflife and carbon Fourteen I should also just point out is a radioactive isotope of carbon. 13:08.20 Ashleigh Airey Said. 13:21.48 archaeoteacup Aka just a slightly more excited version of of the carbon atom. Um, and we know this rate of decay. So again, it's just like the things that the methods that we talked about before we know from? For example, scientific experiments in in other forms of scientific analysis like physics and chemistry and things we've. Worked out what the half -life is we've worked out the decay equation so you can also measure backwards to work out when carbon stop being produced by an object which one might assume is when that thing died like that's the kind of general idea. But like you say ash that is something difficult actually to do with. 13:56.60 Ashleigh Airey I know. 13:59.17 archaeoteacup The wood object because it technically has a It's been brought forward in time so dating is actually something really difficult to do yeah. 14:08.90 Ashleigh Airey Yeah, it wouldn't have decayed over that amount of time so we don't know it's half life. We don't We can't date it. We would actually just date it to our time essentially. Um, so yeah, that'd be really difficult to do. 14:17.30 archaeoteacup Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's a very good point. So d so you can't look at age you can look at materials and content and I like that you mentioned style and I have a fun fact to share because there was a fragment of an ancient Greek statue of aphrodite. 14:24.40 Ashleigh Airey And. 14:34.61 archaeoteacup Which was discovered to be a fake because it did not conform to certain stylistic elements and those elements are the breasts were too saggy. Ah which is was very realistic for like the person who was being depicted but in ancient Greece They always depicted the idealized form So therefore it didn't fit with that idea. Which I Just love that someone looking at ah someone carving was you know trying to be like yes I'm going to depict the female form as it really is and you know then everyone the scholars will like Nope it's sorry they're too realistic. It's too saggy. 15:02.15 Ashleigh Airey Yeah, Unrealistic body like conform. You know it's not great. Yeah. 15:08.83 archaeoteacup Like and another fun fact is um, there's some forgeries that were already forged in antiquity. So it might be indeed that your colleagues have brought something forward, but that is genuinely from that time period. But it's also a fortune. So. 15:14.80 Ashleigh Airey And. 15:24.51 archaeoteacup Um, there's a a statue that's currently on display in the louvre um called the rich richel lieu venus I apologize for my butchering in the french language. Um, which has has an engraving on the pedestal saying fourth century b c greek master praxi telly. However. When it's been dated um it's been dated to the second century a d so actually four hundred years later two hundred years later I mean no four hundred years later sorry a d bc um, so one suggestion that's been made is that there was an ancient sculptor from the second century a d that decided to add this little engraving to the bottom. Either to sort of associate himself you know with this greek master praxiteelles Carver or to try and pass it off as a forgery another suggestion is that it was actually added much later in like the fifteenth century to try and pass it off as something that was older than it was but anyway but I quite like that idea of an ancient Greek cover. Being like oh let's just make this even elder than it already is exactly they yes. But so yeah I don't know if you had any any other thoughts. But I think that that was a I think that that's a pretty good way. 16:21.65 Ashleigh Airey Yeah, if a Del Boy Wheeler dealer 16:38.75 archaeoteacup To see you've got you've got some good good techniques that you can use to check whether indeed these these objects that your colleagues have brought back are indeed actually from the time period that they've yeah that they've come from. 16:50.78 Ashleigh Airey Yeah, and I suppose that's that would just reaffirm my initial. What have you done because Context is so important so important I think people a lot of people don't realize that. Um, so yeah I'd be I'd still be. 16:58.94 archaeoteacup Yeah, yeah, yeah. 17:08.83 Ashleigh Airey Helloid It'd be very cool but I be very annoyed at the same time. 17:12.75 archaeoteacup They would definitely have to have made detailed notes. So anyone who wants to travel back in time and bring forward objects make sure to take your camera with you and make notes if you're going to do it but don't do it. 17:15.59 Ashleigh Airey Um, yeah. 17:22.18 Ashleigh Airey Don't do it? Yeah I'd look at that big wad of a folder that they had and I'd be right? Let's have a look at this before we go any further. 17:32.16 archaeoteacup Yes, true Joe. Yeah I got there, you got well I think that that was ah then ah, a yeah, slightly frustrating interaction with colleagues but I would say a fairly successful. Um, and I think that that's also about it for time for this episode of and my trial. Hope that you enjoyed this little midi quest into the past quite literally. Um, if there's any suggestions of people have episodes. Maybe you've read a fantasy book and been inspired. Maybe there's an archeological concept or analytical method that you don't quite understand and maybe we could explain it through fantasy or something in a book. You want to find out from an archaeological viewpoint get in contact via email or social media. All of our contact info as well as references and further reading can be found in the show notes. Also don't forget we are part of a broader network the archeology podcast network where other hosts such as ourselves try to share our passion and our love for archaeology with the world. If you want to help support us as a network you can become a member check out the Archeology Podcast Network homepage for more information on that. 18:33.79 Ashleigh Airey Tilly do you smell burning. 18:35.54 archaeoteacup Oh wait is that smoke on the horizon. 18:46.43 archaeoteacup Um, oh boy I think we might need some help again with this next quest.