Tracing ancient silk route by nuclear-analytical technique

Total potassium content of archaeological artifacts like glass beads was determined by estimating the amount of 40 K in the sample using Compton Suppression Spectroscopy which in turn unveiled the trading pattern in past through famous ancient silk route in the Bay of Bengal region. The developed technique neither involved any reactor/accelerator/X-ray source nor any chemical treatment of the samples. We analyzed eight different samples from Tamilnadu, India of which two samples showed elevated potassium content indicating their different origin. This is the first report to discriminate glass beads according to their potassium content, which ultimately helped to predict their origin.