Archeology and engineering

The study of Archeology is getting more attention and is now funded in many places. However, because I am currently interested in this subject and I am taking a class of archeology while majoring in Industrial engineering, I would like to demonstrate the way that archeologists use technologies that are common in engineering fields. An example of techniques in archeology that uses tools from a physics lab are carbon-14 dating, thermoluminescence dating, x-ray photography, x-ray fluorescence elemental analysis, CAT and MRI scanning, ground-penetrating sonar and radar, and many others. Even though many people don’t know this, archeology even made a significant contribution to Physics.

One case in which archeology was directly associated with physics is the discovery of an ancient shipwreck. This ship sailed in about 50 AD from Cadiz in Spain carrying cargo to Italy and sank in 25 m (82 ft) of water and about 15 km (9 mi) NE of Alicante in Spain. Its cargo was carrying about two thousand bars of lead each weighing about 33 kg (52 lb). Then, when Ettore Fiorini, a nuclear physicist at the University of Milan-Bicocca, was informed about finding this ship 2000 years later, he offered the National Archaeological Museum of Cagliari in Sardinia the financial support of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) in excavating the vessel and its cargo. In return, a portion of the antique lead (amounting to less than 15 percent, or about 9 metric tons) would be turned over to INFN for use in physics experiments ( Brain Dodson, 2013).

When lead bars have lain underwater for 2,000 years, all of the Pb-210 has decayed, leaving “Roman lead” (or old lead) with a radioactive level roughly 100,000 times lower than is found in new lead. This was of the contributions of archeology that played an important element role and contributed to many experiments in physics afterward. Finally, I really hope that archeological projects are continued to be funded and that engineers and scientists look for a way in which they can use archeology to improve the field that they are experts in.

Please whatch this video that explains the excavation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ti9_Dm-LdQ