In the Solid State Chemistry Group at the Braunschweig University of Technology several different methods can be used for the purpose of datation of ancient manufacts.
The focus of the group is on spectroscopic in-situ methods, i.e. experiments under temperature and gas-atmosphere control.

The following methods will be presented including some exemplary results:

-    in-situ optical spectroscopy of single crystals and powders
-    in-situ EPR spectroscopy of powders
-    in-situ fluorescence spectroscopy of single crystals and powders
-    in-situ Mössbauer spectroscopy of powders
-    in-situ DTA (differential thermal analysis) of powders

In general there are two different methods for the solid state chemistry analysis of these ancient manufacts.

1) The first is just to find any integral value (e.g. a signal intensity) which can be used as a representative measure for the number of radiation defects in the samples. EPR spectroscopy has turned out to be well suited for this purpose.

2) To learn more about the nature of the defects, kinetic studies at different temperatures seem to be a promising approach. If for example two or more different activation energies could be found, this would support the theory of different kinds of defects in the sample.