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A Scientific Detective Story: Neutron Activation Analysis



Watch a video about neutron activation analysis.
How does the modern researcher reunite the "guillotined" limestone heads with their original contexts? How do we know if a fragment comes from a specific church, especially when little sculpture of comparable style remains in situ? An interdisciplinary study incorporating the scientific process of neutron activation analysis and connoisseurship has proved extremely helpful in this regard, particularly when a hypothesis has already been proposed.

Neutron activation analysis (NAA) is a revolutionary new tool for art historians and curators. It allows scientists to determine the origin of sculptures that were separated from their original sites long ago. A one-gram sample is removed from the sculpture and bombarded with neutrons in a nuclear reactor. The trace elements in the stone form isotopes that emit gamma rays, which serve to identify and measure the elements. Stones from different sources have distinct concentrations of between 12 and 20 trace elements. The mapping of these concentrations is used to outline the stones' unique compositional "fingerprints," which are stored in a database (available online at www.limestonesculptureanalysis.com) and can be used as reference points for subsequent chemical profiles.
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