X-RAYS produced by particle accelerators have confirmed the authorship of paintings and probed the structure of fossils. Now they are illuminating the religious rites of ancient Africans.
Pascale Richardin’s team at the Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France in Paris exposed the coating on sculptures used between the 12th and 19th centuries in the rituals of the Dogon and Bamama people of Mali to X-rays produced at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble.
The coating produced the telltale fluorescence of protein molecules laden with haem, an iron-containing group found in blood (Analytical Chemistry, DOI:…
