DETECTION OF ALKYLATED CELLULOSE DERIVATIVES IN SEVERAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL LINEN TEXTILE SAMPLES BY CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORESIS-MASS SPECTROMETRY

Eight different known-age samples of light, nondyed linen textile dated between 1200 B.C. and A.D. 1500 were studied by combined capillary electrophoresis/mass spectrometry analysis of the textile cellulose enzymatic hydrolysates. Both held ionization and held desorption variants of mass spectrometry have been used for identification of each electrophoretic fraction. High-resolution patterns were obtained using the 100 mM tetraborate (pH 9.0) zone electrophoresis system and the on-column laser-based refractive index detector. It has been shown that all archaeological textiles tested contain alkylated cellulose sequences. Thus, these tex-tile samples differ from each other by alkyl groups (acetyl, carboxy, or methyl) as well as by the structure and abundance of the alkylated glucose residues. A possible origin and meaning of the character of this alkylation is under discussion which includes a special reference to correlations between such a parameters as (1) alkylation peculiarities, (2) geographical area of the textile manufacturing, and (3) the textile calendar age values.