At the Institute of Earth and Marine Sciences, the most advanced "Carbon 14 Laboratory" of the Middle East and the Balkans became operational.
The most advanced "Carbon 14 Laboratory" of the Middle East and the Balkans became operational at the Institute of Earth and Marine Sciences of TÜBİTAK Marmara Research Center, one of Turkey's largest research centers. In the laboratory, the real age determination of a 4,000-year-old chitlembic seed and an olive seed taken from Hatay Aççana Höyük was made for the first time.
Prof. Dr. Abdullah Karaman, Director of the Institute of Earth and Marine Sciences, who gave information about the facility, which will serve many fields in age determination, especially archaeological excavations, said that with the Carbon 14 method, it is possible to go back 50,000 years in the fields of dating and age determination of organic remains.
Karaman; "Although the Carbon 14 method is based on analytical chemistry and physical sciences, its application areas know no boundaries. For example, we can determine the intervals at which earthquakes occurred on a fault line in the past or the age of an ancient artifact, or we can follow the course of drugs in our body by using the carbon element as a trace. The dating of Göbeklitepe, Çatalhöyük and other Anatolian settlements, which are the biggest discoveries of recent years in the field of archaeology, have always been done with the Carbon 14 method. The remains at Yenikapı, unearthed during the subway works in Istanbul, have moved the settlement history of the Historic Peninsula back by about 8,500 years. Likewise, Carbon 14 dating was used to illuminate internationally resonant topics such as the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Shroud of Turin."
TÜBİTAK MAM Business Development Manager Nuh Yılmaz gave information about the importance of the Carbon 14 Laboratory for our country and stated that this technology is only active in 19 countries in the world and that it is of critical importance for a country like Turkey, which has hosted many civilizations before and after history and is located in a rare geological and tectonic geography.
Stating that the facility will serve not only our country but also the entire region as it is the most advanced laboratory in its field in the Balkans and the Middle East, Yılmaz said that with this laboratory, TÜBİTAK MAM has gained the opportunity to perform age determination tests, which are performed abroad for very high sums of money, much cheaper and faster. Negotiations with archaeological excavation teams and museum directorates have begun for the laboratory, which has started accepting samples in a certain order.
How did the installation phase of this technology develop in our country?
The Carbon 14 method is based on Accelerated Mass Spectroscopy (AMS) technology. AMS makes atoms travel in a 20-meter line in a straight line. The basic logic is similar to the technology used at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research. Since it works at the atomic level, the laboratory was set up with great care. Our Carbon 14 Laboratory, established at the TÜBİTAK Marmara Research Center, is being set up by a team of people who have worked in Japan and the United States as part of a reverse brain drain.
