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.
I'm copying Laurie on this post--I have a queasy feeling that I'm mis-remembering how the dating came out relative to the assigned date, and I don't find anything hits on "radiocarbon" on LaceNews. She'll send us the correct info if I've muddled it, although I do believe I am correct that the possible error on the date was very large. 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 On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 08:18 AM, Jeri Ames <j <owner-lace-dig...@arachne.com>eria...@aol.com> wrote: ...Soon we will have laces that have been carbon dated. The thread, that is... ...30 or more years ago, I remember Elizabeth Kurella digging into her purse to find a loop (used by jewelers) so she could examine a lace brought to her attention at an Embroiderers' Guild national seminar. We've advanced from that with vision aids... - 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/
