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A BUDDHIST STATUE MADE FROM METEORITE
Abstract
The interest in ancient religions and their sources, essence and artefacts in society is increasing, which is a new feature of our age and requires many values to be reassessed. Among them, there are many low-quality sources and unreliable indications, as well as fakes and simple replicas of artefacts. There is always a lot of contradictive information in the media and it takes several years for researchers to refute it. However, such situation has certain positive elements as well, since such refusals require the development of unconventional research techniques. The subject discussed in this study is the Buddhist statue found by Nazi and made from meteorite, which was a socially relevant topic a few years ago, especially in Austria and Germany. Such cases are not unique, therefore it would be important to develop rather simple and non-destructive techniques that would make it possible to identify copies produced in the near past and distinguish them from genuine ancient artefacts and historical monuments. Current study indicates that it is possible to develop and successfully apply such methodologies to expose falsifications.
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References7
Buchner E., Schmieder M., Kurat G., Brandstätter F., Kramar U., T. Ntaflos T., Kröchert J., Buddha from Space—An Ancient Object of Art Made of a Chinga Iron Meteorite Fragment. Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 47 (Sept. 2012), pp 1491–1501. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/DOI: 10.1111/j.1945-5100.2012.01409.x
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