International working session “Application of nuclear and physical methods for the study of cultural heritage objects”

On September 12, 2023, Tashkent (Uzbekistan) hosted the 3d International working session “Application of nuclear and physical methods for the study of cultural heritage objects”, dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences.

The decision to hold such conferences was made in 2017 in Dubna by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Kazan Federal University and the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, where the first meeting was held. The second international meeting was held in Kazan at the Kazan Federal University.

The third working session was organized by the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences together with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna, Russia) and the National Research Center “Kurchatov Institute”.

President of the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences Bekhzod S. Yuldashev addressed the conference participants with a welcome speech.

More than 50 scientists representing different scientific centres of the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Vietnam and Uzbekistan take part in the conference. This event was highly appreciated by the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The Tatarstan Academy of Sciences was represented by the Director of the Institute of Archaeology named after A.H. Khalikov, Doctor of History, Academician of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences Ayrat G. Sitdikov. He presented the paper “Iron foundry traditions of the Ulus of Jochi in the late 13th – early 15th centuries: based on the results of neutron tomography investigations”.

The conference discusses the results achieved and further prospects for using the following methods: radiography and tomography on neutron and synchrotron beams; neutron and X-ray diffraction; neutron activation analysis; X-ray fluorescence analysis; Mössbauer effect; other methods (resonances in nuclear reactions, PIGE, PIXE, RBS, NMR, neutron depth profiling, etc.).

During discussion it was decided to hold the next conference in Almaty (Kazakhstan) in 2025.