06-02-2016, 10:42 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-02-2016, 10:43 AM by Diane.
Edit Reason: correction
)
Rene.
in theory that's absolutely right, but the formal processes require a formal method (international standards exist and are normally applied) from the first moment the test begins. That means that sampling decisions are taken according to standard methods, not just that once the samples are taken they are run through the lab properly.
Given the small number of samples taken, the fact that the choice of samples was not done 'by the book' or anything like it, and that samples only came from the top few quires, no formal scientific paper could be written from those results. In technical terms, the method was corrupt.
However, since the experts were willing to work under those constraints, and were in a position to make due allowances etc., the usual thing is either to doubt the results entirely, or accept them as published.
I've chosen the latter course: the date range is thus 1405-1438.
However, since nothing at all was taken from the bottom eleven quires (!), we are chiefly relying on palaeographic evidence, and statistical analyses of the text to argue completion of the whole within that range - neither earlier nor later.
For all we know, though, those bottom eleven quires could have returned dates in the range 1350-1400.
What I do think unacceptable is to refuse to accept the dates and published, yet use the lab's results to push for a date range way outside them. One might as well argue for seventy-five years earlier, given the conditions under which the University of Arizona were obliged to work. I realise that the library couldn't let more than four samples be taken, but one might wish with the Uni of Arizona, as indeed with McCrone that the experts had been just given the brief to report on the pigments, or the parchment's date, and let get on with it. At least then we'd have expert and scientific method, and informed selection of admittedly limited no. of samples.
in theory that's absolutely right, but the formal processes require a formal method (international standards exist and are normally applied) from the first moment the test begins. That means that sampling decisions are taken according to standard methods, not just that once the samples are taken they are run through the lab properly.
Given the small number of samples taken, the fact that the choice of samples was not done 'by the book' or anything like it, and that samples only came from the top few quires, no formal scientific paper could be written from those results. In technical terms, the method was corrupt.
However, since the experts were willing to work under those constraints, and were in a position to make due allowances etc., the usual thing is either to doubt the results entirely, or accept them as published.
I've chosen the latter course: the date range is thus 1405-1438.
However, since nothing at all was taken from the bottom eleven quires (!), we are chiefly relying on palaeographic evidence, and statistical analyses of the text to argue completion of the whole within that range - neither earlier nor later.
For all we know, though, those bottom eleven quires could have returned dates in the range 1350-1400.
What I do think unacceptable is to refuse to accept the dates and published, yet use the lab's results to push for a date range way outside them. One might as well argue for seventy-five years earlier, given the conditions under which the University of Arizona were obliged to work. I realise that the library couldn't let more than four samples be taken, but one might wish with the Uni of Arizona, as indeed with McCrone that the experts had been just given the brief to report on the pigments, or the parchment's date, and let get on with it. At least then we'd have expert and scientific method, and informed selection of admittedly limited no. of samples.