TY - GEN A1 - Rabin, Ira T1 - Material analysis: authentication or forgery detection? N2 - The lecture will discuss the sensitive issue of authentication of the objects of cultural heritage of immense cultural and monetary value if certified to be genuine. It will be made clear that material analysis alone, especially its non-destructive variety conducted by specialists in a single technique, can not prove that the object is genuine. The best material analysis can do, after all appropriate tests have been conducted, is to announce that nothing has been found that contradicts the assumption of genuineness. Moreover, the results of the natural analysis can never be used as the only justification of the authentication in the cases of composite objects such as manuscripts or epigraphs. A certification always requires the expertise of the specialist in the field (be it a historian, paleographer, epigrapher, etc.), whose judgment can be at the most supported by appropriate material analysis. The most effective approach for testing suspicious artifacts has been established by the forensic science. Here, not the authentication, but the determination of the forgery stands in the focus of the work. Investigation protocols developed within 150 years and constantly improved include a clear statement of the analysis purpose and the definition of plausibility criteria for the possible outcome. The younger sister of the forensics, archaeometry has to overcome additional obstacles such as the heterogeneity of historic material coupled with the scarcity of suitable reference material. Over the last two decades the popularity of archaeometric studies has increased enormously, with the industry-driven development of so-called non-destructive technologies (NDT) that do not require sampling. Further technological developments led to the appearance of NDT methods with extremely small interaction windows (µm range). Each of these methods has limitations that have to be carefully considered when planning the tests of a heterogeneous and often partially degraded historical material. This approach is inherently multi-instrumental, therefore archaeometric and forensic departments unite a number of specialists who work together defining the tasks and the methods involved for their successful completion. T2 - 2nd International Conference on Art & Archaeology CY - Jerusalem, Israel DA - 11.12.2016 KW - Archaeometry KW - Forgery KW - Cultural heritage PY - 2016 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/39188 AN - OPUS4-39188 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany