# Radiocarbon dating · Concept

> Dating organic material by how much of its carbon-14 has decayed.

Source: https://mysteriesdept.com/concepts/CPT0DECW013KR34/radiocarbon-dating  
Publisher: Mysteries Department  
Licence: CC BY 4.0 (credit Mysteries Department and link the page)  

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[Concepts](https://mysteriesdept.com/concepts)Radiocarbon dating

Concept · archaeometry · in 8 mysteries

# Radiocarbon dating

Dating organic material by how much of its carbon-14 has decayed.

[Proto-Sinaitic and Wadi el-Hol: the first alphabet](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-sinaitic)[Shroud of Turin](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/shroud-of-turin)[Vinča signs](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/vinca-signs)

Living things take in carbon-14 while they live; after death it decays at a known rate, so the amount left in bone, wood, cloth or parchment gives the time since death, to within a few decades once calibrated against tree rings. On this site it dates the Voynich Manuscript's vellum to the early fifteenth century, the Shroud of Turin's cloth to the Middle Ages (a result still argued over), and the bones, hearths and seeds of a dozen excavations. It dates the material, not the making: old parchment can be written on late.

## Where it comes up

**[Proto-Sinaitic and Wadi el-Hol: the first alphabet](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-sinaitic)**

[Q: Are the Umm el-Marra clay cylinders of about 2400 BC alphabetic writing?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-sinaitic/questions/QST0DEDW8MZFBEA/are-the-umm-el-marra-clay-cylinders-of-about-2400-bc)[Q: When were the Serabit el-Khadim inscriptions written: in the Middle Kingdom, about 1850 BC, or in the New Kingdom?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-sinaitic/questions/QST0DEDW70ERVE3/when-were-the-serabit-el-khadim-inscriptions-written-in-the)

**[Shroud of Turin](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/shroud-of-turin)**

[The linen was made between about AD 1260 and 1390, as the 1988 radiocarbon dating found.](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/shroud-of-turin/answers/ANS0CWY2J0J1N46/the-linen-was-made-between-about-ad-1260-and-1390-as-the)

**[Vinča signs](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/vinca-signs)**

[Q: When were the Tărtăria tablets made, and are they genuine Neolithic objects from the pit Vlassa described?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/vinca-signs/questions/QST0DEDW337CVM0/when-were-the-tartaria-tablets-made-and-are-they-genuine)

**[Etruscan: the readable language that cannot be fully translated](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/etruscan-language)**

[Q: What does the Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis say?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/etruscan-language/questions/QST0DEDYK9ES20R/what-does-the-liber-linteus-zagrabiensis-say)

**[Pictish symbol stones](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/pictish-symbols)**

The other is a corrected version of the statistical test, run with a null model built from non-linguistic emblem systems of similar size and pairing structure, which would show whether the 2010 result survives Sproat's…

**[Rongorongo](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/rongorongo)**

And radiocarbon dating has started to address the oldest question about the script, whether it existed before Europeans arrived in 1722 or was inspired by the sight of Spanish writing in 1770.

**[Dead Sea Scrolls: dating, scribes and provenance](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/dead-sea-scrolls-dating)**

Radiocarbon dating has fixed the broad range.

**[Unread oracle bone characters](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/oracle-bone-undeciphered)**

Radiocarbon dating of king-attributed bones in 2021 put Wu Ding's reign at 1254 to 1197 BC and the end of the sequence at about 1041 BC . The script is therefore read in the sense that matters for history.

## Cite it

```
Mysteries Department. (2026). Radiocarbon dating [Concept CPT0DECW013KR34]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/CPT0DECW013KR34
```

Key

**CPT** 0DECW013KR34

Record

Concept

Field

Archaeometry

Related

[Calibration curve](https://mysteriesdept.com/concepts/CPT0DECW019N8HS/calibration-curve) · [Thermoluminescence dating](https://mysteriesdept.com/concepts/CPT0DECW01EV5D0/thermoluminescence-dating) · [Stratigraphy](https://mysteriesdept.com/concepts/CPT0DECW01M0SC0/stratigraphy)

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Related concepts

[Calibration curve](https://mysteriesdept.com/concepts/CPT0DECW019N8HS/calibration-curve)[Thermoluminescence dating](https://mysteriesdept.com/concepts/CPT0DECW01EV5D0/thermoluminescence-dating)[Stratigraphy](https://mysteriesdept.com/concepts/CPT0DECW01M0SC0/stratigraphy)

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