Identification Of Ancient Textile Traces Based On Immunological Techniques

Textiles are important evidences of Chinese civilization with their rich varieties, beautiful weave style and comfortable characteristics. Ancient textiles research is of important significance for the understanding of ancient Chinese politics, economy and culture. As one of the main parts of Chinese textiles, silk is always the pride of Chinese nation. Silk Road rised by the communication between Eastern and Western civilization has an indelible effect for the whole human history. However, the origin of silk is still a mystery. As a result, it is of great historical and cultural value to solve this problem with modern scientific techniques.The main component of silk is silk fibroin, which is easily deteriorated by humidity, heat, oxygen, microorganism, and so on. It is not difficult to imagine that silks were degraded into peptides or amino acids after buried in the tombs for thoustands of years and we cannot recogined them by naked eyes. In addition, the earlier the silks exist, the more difficultly for the physical evidence to be found. Therefore, it is necessary to explore ancient textiles information from traces, residues and soils by the use of scientific techniques.Immunoassay technique was the first time to be employed in the detection of archaeological silk. Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay(ELISA), immunofluorescence microscopy(IFM), gold-basedimmunochromatographic strip assay(GICS) and time-resolved immunochromatographic strip assay(TICS) were employed. Also as an extension system of textile, ELISA was employed in the detection of archaeological wool, which provides the possibility for the identification other fabrics.Calcium chloride was used to extract silk fibroin powder. Then New Zealand rabbits were immunized for the preparation of primary antibody. The detection limit of ELISA, GICS and TICS was 0.1 ng/ml, 1.5 μg/ml and 32.26 ng/ml, respectively. Then ELISA,IFM,GICS,TICS were also employed for the detection of the archaeological silks from Chu tomb and Song tomb. All the methods presented positive results as expected. After that, ELISA, GICS and TICS were applied in the detection of silk in mud and the detection limit was 100 ng/ml,10 μg/ml and 1 μg/ml, respectively. At the same time, the proportion of fibroin in the soil was 0.001%,0.1% and 0.01%, respectively.Sodium hydroxide/hydrogen peroxide system was employed to extract the keratin. Then New Zealand rabbits were immunized for the preparation of primary antibody. ELISA was used and the detection limit of keratin was 10 ng/ml. Four pieces of archaeological wools were detected and the results were in accordance with the expected. Wool samples in mud were also detected and the detection limit was 1 μg/ml. At the same time, the proportion of keratin in the soil samples was 0.01%.In conclusion, the extraction and identification methods of ancient textiles were established in this work. These techniques not only fill the gaps of ancient textiles detection fields, but also provide a new idea for the exploring of silk origins.