Sciacca Mystery the End pt.III

Radiocarbon tests, for those who may not be aware, determine the date of a body, object or material. So far the tests on the Sciacca samples had proven that this coral had been, how I can say it, a victim of volcanic phenomena. But we already knew this: the entire area we are talking about is full of large and small active craters.

Bodnar’s tests demonstrated something more: the volcanic phenomena had modified the very composition, the chemical make-up of the coral, infusing it with the elements of volcanic emissions rich in iron, manganese, copper and uranium.
An extreme, perhaps definitive step was now being proposed: dating the coral by radiocarbon tests. I didn’t know whether I was more excited or more frightened... At any rate I said yes.
“There is a Center of Excellence (that is in southern Italy) where they do these things and do them very well. I am speaking of the CEDAD, the Dating and Diagnostic Center of the University of Salento, Department of Engineering and Innovation, in Lecce.”
“I will call them tomorrow and see if they can help us out.”
The following morning Margherita Superchi called me back and said that she had spoken with the CEDAD: they’re waiting for the rough samples and are happy to take part in this adventure.
“Choose two or three samples and send them”, she said in her simultaneously sweet and peremptory tone...
Sounds easy: what pieces of coral do I choose? Which are the most suitable? This isn’t like the lots of new, live coral that I buy...
I found these at home, they were left by my great -grandfather... and I don’t know exactly where they’re from... Just that they come from Sciacca.
From among the rough coral of Sciacca I chose two very different pieces, one a beautiful intense orange color and the other of a duller color, slightly blackened. Then I added a third piece: a piece of mud, or rather ash of volcanic origin, torn from the sea and containing many small branches of coral of a deep orange color... those were the three samples to be examined...
One month later I was taking part in a working group when I received a call on my mobile... it was from Milan.
I answered: it was Margherita Superchi. Such a discreet, attentive person as she must have good reasons to call me on my mobile.
“Am I disturbing you? Sorry, I called you at your office and they told me you were at a meeting. But I couldn’t wait any longer, I had to talk to you: I have the dates from Lecce. Are you sitting down?
“Listen: sample S2, the deep orange color is dated – give or take a year - approximately 2,000/2,400 years ago, sample S3, the one that’s slightly blackened, dates back to 4,000/4,400 years ago and the mud to 2,300/2,500 years ago. Your theory is confirmed in full!”
Of course my meeting ended in that instant. The people who were with me will remember: I was so excited I couldn’t contain myself… and I’m usually so self-contained. The radiocarbon tests had proven that the coral torn from the sea by the coral boats, passage after passage over the bank (or rather over the deposit, as Mazzarelli would say) was more damaged and thus older, more ancient.
Four thousand years ago: this coral was growing and dying four thousand years ago, when those seas were being sailed, just think, by Phoenicians, Egyptians, Cretans... the time when the Hammurabi code was being written, the period in which Stonehenge was being completed in England, near Salisbury, the years in which the Palace of Knossos was being constructed in Crete!

And yet there was still something that did not convince me...

To Be Continued...
[text taken with license from the author Giuseppe Rajola from the book Sciacca Mystery]

Enjoy!