Factors That Affect the Apparent Radiocarbon Age of Textiles

We comment on a paper in this volume by Kouznetsov et al. (1), who report that the ¹⁴C age of the textile, which was originally dated as about 2,195±55 yr BP was changed by 1,400 yr to about 800 yr BP, by heating in air containing small amounts of water. These authors also make several claims about the reliability of radiocarbon dating of cellulose and cellulose-containing textiles. They include statements that ¹⁴C is not distributed uniformly in flax, and an untested claim that isotopic fractionation of ¹⁴C relative to ¹³C and ¹²C occurs in some way different from that accounted for by the usual equations employed by radiocarbon laboratories. They use their results to question the validity of all radiocarbon measurements, and specifically to criticize the radiocarbon results on the Shroud of Turin (2).