Naturvidenskabelige undersøgelser af mursten i Sorø Klosterkirke – sortering af mursten

Faculty surveys of bricks in Sorø Abbey – sorting of bricksBy Kaare Lund Rasmussen, Christina Andersenand Thomas BertelsenSmall samples have been procured with hammer and chisel from the bricks in the crowns of the walls in the medieval church of the Cistercian monastery of Sorø, Denmark. The samples have been subjected to three types of analyses: magnetic susceptibility, thermoluminescence sensitivity, and for the first time colour measurements. The colour measurements were performed with a handheld Minolta CM-2600d photo spectrometer yielding very precise colours in the 1976 CIE colour system (L*,a*,b*). Extensive sorting of bricks according to colour seems to have been a common feature in the vast group of Danish late medieval building projects where the varying colours of bricks were used as decoration. Genuine patterns seem to be a phenomenon of eastern Denmark with Roskilde Cathedral’s Chapel of the Three Kings from about 1460 as the noblest representative (fig. 13). Masonry with belts of bricks of contrasting colours also occurs, while arches of alternating red and dark bricks appear across the country (fig. 14). The most common type of decoration, however, was red façades with evenly spread dark bricks. This might seem coincidental but the absence of this feature in the interior walls underlines its role as a deliberate facade décor. Possibly, bricks were also sorted by colour when the building of the Abbey Church of Sorø was commenced shortly after the founding of the abbey in 1161. Only small parts of the original façade of the church have been preserved, for example the gable of the northern transept, which is a well-balanced blend of red and dark bricks (see fig. 15, p. 118). In contrast, the interior walls above the vaulting are built of much more monochrome bricks, which points to a deliberate wish for polychrome façades

The Effects of Possible Contamination on the Radiocarbon Dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls II: Empirical Methods to Remove Castor Oil and Suggestions for Redating

While kept at the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem, many Dead Sea Scroll fragments were exposed to castor oil by the original team of editors in the course of cleaning the parchments. Castor oil must be regarded as a serious contaminant in relation to radiocarbon dating. If modern castor oil is present and is not removed prior to dating, the 14C dates will be skewed artificially towards modern values. Earlier, it was shown that the standard AAA pretreatment procedure used in the 2 previous studies dating Dead Sea Scroll samples is not capable of removing castor oil from parchment samples. In the present work, we show that it is unlikely that castor oil reacts with the amino acids of the parchment proteins, a finding which leaves open the possibility of devising a cleaning method that can effectively remove castor oil. We then present 3 different pretreatment protocols designed to effectively remove castor oil from parchment samples. These involve 3 different cleaning techniques: extraction with supercritical CO2, ultrasound cleaning, and Soxhlet extraction—each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Our data show that the protocol involving Soxhlet extraction is the best suited for the purpose of decontaminating the Dead Sea Scrolls, and we recommend that this protocol be used in further attempts to 14C date the Dead Sea Scrolls. If such an attempt is decided on by the proper authorities, we propose a list of Scroll texts, which we suggest be redated in order to validate the 14C dates done earlier.

Udviklingen af algoritmer til at beskrive sikker kørsel på basis af data fra kørende biler

En lang række Intelligente Transportsystemer udvikles i disse år til at hjælpe den enkelte bilist med at køre mere sikkert. En central del er omkring trafiksikkerhed, og som en del af det nordjyske ITS Platform projekt udvikles en risikolog, der beskriver hvor risikobetonet den enkelte deltagende bilists kørselsadfærd er. Den giver feedback til bilisten, hvis der foretages risikobetonet kørsel i form af for høje hastigheder, kraftige decelerationer samt kraftige accelerationer i kørselsretningen samt sideværts. Den afledte af accelerationen, kaldet rykket beskriver risikobetonet adfærd bedre end accelerationen. Der er en god sammenhæng mellem antallet af kraftige ryk i kørselsretningen og kørselsadfærden, mens der ikke kan konstateres en klar sammenhæng mellem sideværts ryk og kørselsadfærden. Datagrundlaget for disse resultater er ikke stort, og grænseværdier for de ryk, der skal resultere i feedback i forbindelse med risikolog dokumenteres løbende i takt med, at data fra deltagerne i ITS Platform bliver indsamlet