Radiocarbon dating of mortar charcoals from romanesque Southern Corridor, Prague Castle

Extensive Survey on Radiocarbon Dating of Organic Inclusions in Medieval Mortars in the Czech Republic

“…Interestingly, similar results were obtained regarding age distribution of charred wood used for lime burning for almost all objects. The distributions are close to normal ones with standard deviations σ of about 15-40 years; the Romanesque corridor at Prague Castle represents an exception with two such phases, consistent with the building activities on site (Kundrát et al 2022). The widths of the KDE distributions are heavily influenced by the local pattern of the calibration curve, as discussed above.…”

“…For comparison, analogous results are presented for the northern tower of Rýzmburk (Figure 3C), the bergfried of Týřov (Figure 3D), the tower and buttress of Pyšolec (Figure 3E), and the Southern Corridor of Bishopric District of Prague Castle (Figure 3F), based on previously presented samples (Kundrát et al 2022;Pachnerová Brabcová et al 2022a, 2022b, 2022c; samples of Paleolithic origin or identified as old wood or young intrusions were excluded. As the KDE method in Oxcal is based on stochastic Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations, its results slightly differ from run to run, and the present results are not identical with those reported previously, yet the basic characteristics remain unchanged.…”

“…The analyzed remains likely originate from 1300-1340 (Korbíčková and Hložek 2019). Finally, 14 C data are included from the Southern Corridor of Bishopric District (Kundrát et al 2022), a valuable site uncovered in early 1920s as the first Romanesque remain in the 3rd Courtyard of Prague Castle (50.0903N, 14.4004E). While it likely originates from the 11th or 12th centuries, there are indications of ongoing building activity such as raising terrace walls at least till the 14th-16th centuries.…”