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Radiocarbon dating

A reference page linking a name, group, or concept to the materials that discuss it.

A probabilistic date range for organic material; for parchment it dates animal skin rather than ink directly.

Original clock diagram for dating organic material; it does not reproduce the Birmingham manuscript
Original clock diagram for dating organic material; it does not reproduce the Birmingham manuscriptOriginal diagram: IL Archive, 2026. · CC0License · Image source

Text

Radiocarbon dating measures remaining carbon-14 in organic material and calibrates a probability range. For BirminghamBirmingham, United KingdomBirmingham is a city in England whose university preserves early Qur’anic parchment leavesGlossary · Click to read the explanation's Qur'an parchment, the 568–645 CE range at 95.4% probability concerns the death of the animal. The test alone does not fix the year of writing or the composition of the surahs; script, material and context also matter. [8][9]

References and notes

  1. Complete University of Birmingham conservation/research page, including parchment, script and ink findings; underlying lab report not read. University of Birmingham, Research and conservation, complete page Return to the text ↑
  2. Complete Birmingham FAQ: two-leaf contents, dating limits and permission requirement for publishing photographs. University of Birmingham, Qur'an manuscript FAQs, complete page Return to the text ↑

Research history

Substantive changes are retained here. Minor copy edits remain in the internal operational log.

  1. Edition 2 · 13 October 2026 · editor:aladmin

    Substantive record update

    Read this revision in its original language (Arabic)

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Cite this record

IL Archive, «Radiocarbon dating», Edition 2, https://ilarchive.com/en/entities/radiocarbon-dating