Carbon Dating the Temple at Ephesus

[Nicator]

If we could gather any charred remains of the temple that burned to the ground at Ephesus, then we'd have as close to an exact date to ATG's birth as is possible. Just a thought.later Nicator

[marcus]

I'm not sure that carbon dating goes to that level, unfortunately. It's usually only good for an approximate date, plus or minus x. So we'd only get something like 340, +/-20 (if indeed even *that* specific!).All the bestMarcus

[Nicator]

Yes, I'm aware of the shortcomings of current Carbon dating techniques, but we should always keep the question open...as long as possible anyway, as the future will surely bring improved methods. One thing that the scientists can do to improve the situation would be to intoduce a better algorythm into the C-dating method. Since, the main problem appears to be inconsistent Carbon ratios in the atmosphere throughout time. But we have an increasing body of data as to the quantities of Carbon and its isotopes to work with. It should only be a matter of time before we can start to refine our dating methods and even revisit those artifacts that have previously been pegged within 20 years to say 1 year, or even 1 month. Just a thought. later Nicator

[marcus]

Yep, that's true. It's certainly a nice idea. What I don't know is whether it is a realistic goal - *could* carbon dating ever give us that much accuracy? I remember that, when I was at university, there was quite a lot of debate of whether C14 dating was really as good as they had originally thought, and increasingly people were turning to dendrochronology and other methods - I suppose that it took enough time for sufficient data to be produced to allow dendrochronology to take place, so they were getting very excited about its potential in the late 80s!All the bestMarcus

[Nicator]

It's not often that I run into someone that even knows what dendrochronology is, let alone that can talk about it...impressive. Not to get too far off course here, but I'd say that with a little bit of luck, and the right amount of data, we may be able to use one dating technique to verify the other or even fill in the missing links of the other. I'm still hopeful. One of my idea's back in my more idealistic days was to use dendrochronology of fossilized trees to determine the rate's of planetary rotation in pre-historic times (300,000,000 years ago). This information could help us to date the planet and the universe amongst other things. In the very least, it would give us an approximate rate of gravitational decay over many millions of years, as earth was undoubtedly closer to the sun and just as certainly, rotated faster (thus giving shorter, faster years). I actually consulted the curator (or an assistant curator) Chicago Museum of Natural History and personally inspected quite a few on display, but further research revealed that tree rings usually don't fossilize. Again, I'm still hopeful. later Nicator

[marcus]

I fear your knowledge of dendroch. sounds more advanced than mine - when I was at university I paid little more than lip-service to the archaeology options, as I wanted to focus on history. I did the practical arch. stuff (which we had to do to complete our degrees), but of course that meant digging up a field in SW England, not actually getting into high level stuff like that. But I like the sound of your hopes - one day, one day! :-)ATBMarcus

[abm]

i'm afraid that if this day will ever come at all, it certainly will not be during the lifetime of anyone participating on this forum now. But actually I don't think carbon dating and dendrochronology can ever become more precise than fixing an exact year with a 100% certainty and it would already be an enormous accomplishment if they can ever achieve that.I also doubt whether we should really believe Alexander was born on the very same night the temple at Ephesus burned down.regards,abm

[marcus]

Well, yes (regarding whether or not we should believe it). In fact, as far as I can tell, it seems very clear indeed that the dates were manipulated after the fact; but it was a good link into the discussion on dating techniques ... :-)ATBMarcus