Radiocarbon Dating of Kharo~thi Fragments from the Sch0yen and Senior Manuscript Collections* Mark Allon, Richard Salomon, Geraldine Jacobsen, Ugo Zoppi 1. Introduction Colophons providing historical data are rarely encountered amongst the earlier Buddhist manuscript finds. 1 As a consequence, such manuscripts are usually dated by paleographical analysis or other circumstantial indications. Given that the technique of dating organic materials by radiocarbon analysis (' 4 C) has been available for several decades and successfully employed in many other fields, it is surprising that the instances of the employment of this dating technique in the study of Buddhist manuscripts are so few. The tests undertaken prior to those which are the subject of this paper are the following: 1) in 1996 Cristina Scherrer-Schaub (University of Lausanne/College de France) had seven samples of Tibetan paper manuscripts from Tabo monastery (Himachal Pradesh) dated by this method at the Institute of Particle Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, by Dr. George Bonani. The radiocarbon dates ranged from the 8th to the 17th century. The results (Scherrer-Schaub and Bonani 2002: 209-212) accorded with pretesting estimates, which were based on codicological, philological, or historical grounds, for at least four of the seven samples. In the remaining cases it led to a reassessment of the bases for the pretesting estimates; 2) in 2001 a sample of the newly discovered manuscript of the Sanskrit Dirghagama on birch bark (possibly from the Gilgit region/ was tested and dated to A.D. 764-1000 (20). 3 According to Lore Sander (personal communication), this agrees with the paleographic evidence as the variety of Brahmi script in this manuscript is Gilgit/Bamiyan Type II, datable to the 7th to 10th century • The results of the radiocarbon dating of the Senior samples and their interpretation and the limitations of radiocarbon dating were presented at the International Association of Buddhist Studies Conference held in London, 31st August 2005, by Mark Allon, Richard Salomon, and Lore Sander under the title "Radiocarbon Dating ofKharo~{hi Manuscripts." Geraldine Jacobsen and Ugo Zoppi undertook the preparation and analysis of the Kharo~thi manuscript fragments at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), Menai, New South Wales, Australia. D1 Jacobsen is Senior Research Scientist; Dr Zoppi was Research Scientist at the time. 1 Among Kharo~thi manuscripts, colophons are found in the Khotan Dharmapada and British Library Kharo~thi Fragment 3B (see Salomon 1999: 40-42). 2 See Hartmann 2000. 3 This date range, like the others that will be usually quoted in this paper, is what is referred to as the two sigma (2u) or two standard deviation figure, which means that it is 95.4% likely that the age of the material falls within this period. The one sigma (la) date range, which is also given by the testing laboratories, is less meaningful as the likelihood of the age of the material falling within this range is only 68.3%. These calibrated or calendar ages are derived from the raw radiocarbon age (the 14 C age) initially produced by the labs. The 14 C age is given as years "before present" (BP), along with a plus or minus(±) one sigma variability, where the "present" is set at the year A.O. 1950. The 14 C age for the Dirghiigama sample was 1160±65 BP. As is often the case with radiocarbon dating, there were actually more than one 20" date ranges for the Dirghagama sample: A.O. 716-749 (5.4%) and A.D. 764-1000 (90%), the latter, of course, being the more meaningful. These tests, the results of which have not been published, were commissioned by the manuscript dealer Sam Fogg of London. The samples were prepared by RCD RadioCarbon Dating, Wantage, England, and measured by the Radiocarbon Laboratory of the University of Groningen, Netherlands. We would like to thank Jens-Uwe Hartmann for supplying us with a copy of these results.