14C dating compared to art historical dating of Roman and Coptic textiles from Egypt

Abstract

A representative selection of Roman and Coptic textiles is used to compare the radiocarbon dating results with the chronology proposed by art historians. In some cases, the comparison was made on individual objects, but in other cases, groups of stylistically and/or technologically related textiles were compared. In the case of the latter, the interquartile range was calculated. The results of this comparison show that some individual samples and groups are dated older than expected, while for another group the opposite is the case. One group was matching well with the presumed period as a whole, but not on the basis of the individual pieces. The analyses showed the necessity of 14C dating to obtain a more accurate dating of Coptic textiles.