Forgery of stag-shaped vessel

It is extremely rare to find one deer vessel, let alone two, that are really from the second millennium BCE. One of these is from that era and the other is modern.

Small samples were drilled from both deer vessels and sent for thermoluminescence (TL) testing. (The pink powder in the sample container next to the deer vessels shows the size of sample necessary for a TL test. Samples must be taken under strict conditions to avoid contamination, which can interfere with testing.)

The principle behind TL testing is that some of the minerals comprising ceramic materials, such as the terra-cotta of the deer, absorb natural background radiation at a predictable rate. When the clay is fired during manufacture, these minerals release this radiation. This sets the TL "clock" back to zero, and the minerals again begin to absorb radiation. As the samples from the deer vessels were heated to over 400 degrees Celsius during the TL test, the absorbed radiation was released and measured. This told us approximately how long it had been since each vessel had last been fired. The TL test is not precise enough to give an exact date of manufacture. Instead it provides a range of dates. If the apparent age of the object falls within this range, the TL result is said to be consistent with the suggested period of manufacture. The TL data show that one of the vessels is around three thousand years old and the other is less than a hundred years old. Can you tell which is which? (Lift the flap to see if you're right.)

The deer vessel on the right was made between 2,100 and 3,200 years ago, while the deer on the left was made less than 100 years ago.