[atombender]

The Carbon 14 dating process is not sensitive to pollution from, say, the sweat or sebum on the hands of people handling it. What's more, the sample was vigorously cleaned before analysis.

The article (the one that this thread is about, not the study) addresses exactly this. The author makes the point is C14 dating is widely misunderstood by non-experts who still decide it's within their expertise to find fault with the it.

[nsxwolf]

It's susceptible to contamination from millennia-newer cloth fibers though!

[atombender]

Did nobody here read the article? The author covered this:

> … to distort the result by 13 centuries the threads employed in the mending would have had to have been more numerous than the threads of the part to be mended

Furthermore, the samples were examined by two textile experts, and later by a lab that looked for trace fabrics that could have affected the radiocarbon dating, and they all confirmed that the sample was the original fabric.

[tsimionescu]

If only there was evidence that any such fibers existed. Alas, there is not.