MARINE RESERVOIR EFFECT OF SPERMACETI, A WAX OBTAINED FROM THE HEAD OF THE SPERM WHALE: A FIRST ESTIMATION FROM MUSEUM SPECIMENS - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue Radiocarbon Année : 2022

MARINE RESERVOIR EFFECT OF SPERMACETI, A WAX OBTAINED FROM THE HEAD OF THE SPERM WHALE: A FIRST ESTIMATION FROM MUSEUM SPECIMENS

Résumé

ABSTRACT Spermaceti is a waxy substance found in the head cavities of sperm whales ( Physeter macrocephalus and P. catodon ). This substance had a variety of commercial applications from the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century, such as candles, soap, cosmetics and other compounds. Spermaceti was also occasionally used as wax for modeling sculptures. In order to date such artworks the marine reservoir effect (MRE) has to be considered. The chemical library of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (Paris, France) contains samples of spermaceti studied by the French chemist M. E. Chevreul (1786–1889) at the beginning of the 19th century. Eight samples of substances preserved in their original containers were 14 C dated. According to the whaling practices and the publications of Chevreul, we estimated that the spermaceti samples came from whales caught between 1805 and 1815. AMS 14 C dating results are from 550 to 1180 ± 30 BP, R values between 393 and 1023 (± 34) 14 C yr and ΔR between –168 and 504 (± 60) 14 C yr. The values presented here are the first ever obtained for spermaceti. However, being based on museum specimens, further measurements on crude material would be necessary to refine these results.
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hal-03866897 , version 1 (23-11-2022)

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Lucile Beck, Ingrid Caffy, Emmanuelle Delque-Količ, Jean-Pascal Dumoulin, Stéphane Hain, et al.. MARINE RESERVOIR EFFECT OF SPERMACETI, A WAX OBTAINED FROM THE HEAD OF THE SPERM WHALE: A FIRST ESTIMATION FROM MUSEUM SPECIMENS. Radiocarbon, 2022, 64 (6), pp.1607-1616 (3rd Radiocarbon in the Environment Conference Gliwice, Poland, July 5-9, 2021 December 2022). ⟨10.1017/RDC.2022.79⟩. ⟨hal-03866897⟩
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