Hidden secrets revealed in microscopic images of ancient artifacts - Livescience.com

Highly magnified views of archaeological artifacts display their extraordinary hidden beauty and reveal intriguing clues about how they were crafted and used long ago. .

These and other zoomed-in archaeological images are showcased in a new exhibit called "Invisible Beauty: The Art of Archaeological Science," which opens at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia on Jan.

In another striking image, a bit of basalt glitters in a ceramic roof tile from Gordion, a site in Turkey that was inhabited from at least 2300 B.C., during the early Bronze Age (the tile dates to the first half of the sixth century B.C.).

Inclusions such as basalt in a roof tile can tell archaeologists if the tile was made locally or imported, and this information can help them piece together historic trade routes and exchange networks, said Marie-Claude Boileau, co-curator of the exhibit and director of the Penn Museum's Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAMM).

The image is stunning not only because of the color-saturated crystals but also for the story it tells, she told Live Science.

Since the invention of the microscope in the 16th century, scientists have used magnification and light to peer at organisms and structures too small to be seen with the naked eye.

"People are really used to seeing archaeologists in the field doing the excavations;  we really wanted to show the scale of analysis that we can do," Boileau said

Originally published on Live Science