The age of the pottery, in principle, may then be determined by the relation Age = Accumulated dose / Dose per year Although conceptually straightforward, TL has proven to to be far from simple in practice. Should I be concerned about artificial irradiation? If the radioactivity of the pottery itself, and its surroundings, is measured, the dose rate, or annual increment of dose, may be computed.Some clays are hardly thermoluminescent at all; some may not have a straight-line relationship between dose and TL; spurious luminescence due to chemical or pressure effects may mask the radiation-induced TL; occasionally, a condition called "anomalous fading", where part of the TL is unstable, may lessen the accuracy of the dose measurement.Generally speaking, when a sample is drilled and there is no information available about the burial environment, one may expect up to 40 per cent uncertainty.WARNING ABOUT FAKES USING ANCIENT MATERIALS Recently there has been a spate of forgeries devised expressly to attempt circumventing TL dating.These use pottery of the appropriate period to construct objects.
Much stoneware is not so hard as porcelain and may be sampled by drilling.
The clay cores from lost wax metal castings may readily be tested.
A leaflet from Daybreak describing the TL technique in more detail and giving a bibliography will be provided to interested persons.
The phenomenon of thermoluminescence was first described by the English chemist Robert Boyle in 1663.
They are beautiful, courageous and sensible, but sometimes they just do not know in a world full of tender love, serial dating, slaked lust, affairs, children's desires and indestructible old loves.
-Primero me llama fulana y ahora me acusa de ladrona.