ALTERATIONS IN THE ANATOMY AND CHEMICAL STRUCTURE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL WOOD FROM A TOMB OF NORTHERN CHINA DUE TO DIFFERENT FUNGAL ROTS

This paper aims to identify the decay types and investigate the chemical alterations in the three types of fungal decayed archaeological wood from Dongshan Han Tomb M6 (ca. 200-100 B.C.) in Taiyuan City, China. Microscopy, FT-IR, C-13 NMR and XPS were adopted to reveal the features of the samples. The results show that from the microscopic and chemical perspectives, these samples are consistent with the characteristics of brown-rot, white-rot and soft-rot. However, all the samples show the accumulation of carboxylic acids or carboxylate salts from extensive oxidation of lignin, which were not observed in artificial fungal decayed wood. Moreover, different fungal decay types and pH values of the samples corresponding to the alternative forms of carboxylic acid or carboxylate salt are considered to be influenced by combined factors, such as the position in the tomb, groundwater level, moisture content, oxygen availability, etc. This study may provide a reference for the deterioration and conservation of fungal decayed wooden artifacts in the tomb of northern China where alkaline loess is the main soil type.