Tag Archives | conservation

An Interlude About a Roman Lead Scroll

By on July 7, 2012 in Community Archaeology, DayOfArch2012

I received a call on the morning of Day of Archaeology from the PR officer from KAS about a recent find that they are funding me to conserve for the Maidstone Archaeological Group. It has recently been translates by Roger Tomlin in Oxford. there are two columns of seven names each. This discovery will be published in Britannia and KAS is working on a press release for it. It had gone to Switzerland for neutron tomography, because we were hoping to read it without having to unroll it. Unfortunately, this the method was not conclusive (this time – an earlier experiment had been successful), , so it has been unrolled, although quite fragile and now needs a supportive backing.

Drawing by Roger Tomlin of Maidstone Archaeology Group’s Roman lead scroll

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Digging in the Lebanon

By on July 3, 2012 in DayOfArch2012, Excavation, Expeditions

My name is Pippa Pearce and I am a British Museum conservator on a dig in the Lebanon run jointly by the BM and Lebanese archaeologists. I have been taking pictures all day to record Archaeology day here but my internet connection is dodgy. I will try and upload them when I can.

The site is Sidon in modern day Saida. The dig director is Claude Doumet Serhal and the on site representative from the British Museum is Sarah Collins. The dig has funding from a number of interested institutions & individuals, many of them based in the Lebanon.


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A Day at the Shopping Mall CSI lab (Conservation Science Investigations)

By on June 30, 2012 in Community Archaeology, Conservation, DayOfArch2012, Illustration

A bit of an introduction and general update:

I am the conservation manager at “Anglo-Saxon CSI:Sittingbourne” [www.anglosaxoncsi.wordpress.com / facebook / @CSIsitt], we reported from the lab last year and are very pleased to be taking part in Day of Archaeology again…

Our project has had some periods of closure due to lack of funding over the past year, and we are in the midst of a fundraising campaign at the moment and seeking out new ways to fund conservation of the 2nd half of the Meads cemetery; as well as expand and take forward the CSI shopping mall lab concept. We are open 10-4 Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at the moment, and possibly might add Saturdays for July and August. Although we had to stop conservation work for a large part of last year, work on recording the large bead assembly, and reviewing the results of the conservation work took place, and the Assessment Report for Meads II is with the Canterbury Archaeological Trust editors and hopefully out soon. I shall be away for most of the next 2 months (family illness and then conserving on site for Rutgers University Dig in the Upper Sabina Tiberia Valley, Italy). So today we started to confirm plans to ‘down scalpels’ and carry out a further review of the conservation work and invite volunteers and visitors to attempt reconstructions of our grave groups while I am away. We also need to compile a list of research questions we may have about materials we might want to investigate further, with the portable Hitachi Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) that is coming to the lab soon – thanks to a generous scientific equipment grant that has recently been awarded to Oxford University (RLAHA) for the CSI project and general conservation use, by the Clothworkers’ Foundation.

Our partners, Sittingbourne Heritage Museum have counted well over 18,000 visitors to date; and last summer’s count of conservation volunteer hours topped 5,000 !!

The morning’s activities:

Heritage Studies MA student Vicky Price interviewing artist Rob Bloomfield about his work with CSI.

 

Volunteer Vicky Price (Heritage Studies [contemporary practice] Kingston University, MA student] and I discussed her work on shield studs from grave 111, and her main task for the day – her desire to interview me and our resident artist, Rob Bloomfield for our views on the relationship between art & science in our work, and processes of how we are working with the CSI project, for her dissertation (working title: “Narrative, craft and the investigative conservator”)

Vicky’s interview with Rob then turned into a larger discussion about authenticity vs. creativity in his drawings and also his observations that the work of the investigative conservator is a bit like that of a sculptor, but at opposite ends of the spectrum… and he came up with the term “intricate deconstruction”. It is great to have such a wide mix of people involved with this conservation project… and really great to have Rob’s fabulous range of illustrations – today he was sketching ideas for a poster to advertise summer workshops and this also resulted in a possible new T-shirt design, an Anglo-Saxon Warrior (We have an unusually high proportion of warrior graves at our site)… unfortunately, the sword ended up looking more Roman than Anglo-Saxon, so this is not the final copy – it is an interesting and sometimes tricky collaboration… Rob is an unemployed artist, and this is his first experience working with a professional archaeological project.

Rob’s sketches for designing a poster advertising summer workshops “Hands on the Past”

Rob’s Anglo-Saxon Warrior drawing (although sword and scabbard should be longer)


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A Slightly Less Archaeological Day Than Usual

By on June 29, 2012 in DayOfArch2012, Education

Last weekend my left knee decided to stop working. So I had the day off today.  This means doing work for the course I am undertaking alongside my full-time job.

I work as the archaeology officer for Southwark Council. Other than staff in the Heritage team who work in the Borough’s museum, I am the only archaeologist at the Council. I work within the Development Management department (we no longer control development, we manage it!). I advise planning officers on whether proposals comply with the requirements of the Borough’s archaeology policy, wider heritage policies and the relevant paragraphs of the National Planning Policy Framework. I issue briefs for archaeological work, check WSIs, monitor site work, check reports, make recommendations for the discharge of archaeological conditions and manage much of the digital data for the department. Along side the archaeological work I also undertake some conservation work where an archaeological input is necessary or valuable or if it is a GIS heavy project.

I work in a team with conservation officers, urban design officers and a tree officer. As part of my employer’s commitment to staff training I am currently undertaking a postgraduate diploma in Historic Environment Conservation at the Ironbridge Institute. This is part of the Institute of Antiquity and Archaeology at Birmingham that is currently threatened with closure. Ironbridge is an immensely valuable training organisation that provides recognised degrees and qualifications that are organised in a way whereby those in full-time work can easily undertake the qualification with a minimal level of interference with their full-time jobs.

I have nearly finished by essay on concrete conservation (far more interesting than it sounds) and would urge anyone reading this to visit this web page for more information on the potential closure http://saveiaa.wordpress.com/. If you wish to support the effort to preserve the IAA please sign the petition http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-the-iaa/.

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Conservation on a Friday afternoon at MOLA

By on June 29, 2012 in Commercial Archaeology, Conservation, Day of Archaeology, DayOfArch2012

Today so far, is a day of tidying up and sorting things out.  Unlike a lot of my collegues at  Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) we tend to work on many projects at once.  This is partly due to the nature of conservation, you often need to do a little bit to an object and then leave it for a while, so you may as well start on another object.

My plan is to try and finish cleaning some post medieval coins from a site in the city, complete an external contract on a lead fire mark and if I get a chance to play with the waterlogged wooden objects that we are currently treating.

We also say goodbye to our current interns, who have spent the last 9 months working with us at  the archaeological conservation labs in the Museum of London.

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The University of Sydney, Main quadrangle

Museums and Archaeology

By on June 29, 2012 in Day of Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Museum Archaeology

Hello, my name is Candace and I am an Archaeologist.

The University of Sydney, Main quadrangle

This is wheremy career in archaeology began, at the University of Sydney as an undergraduate in the archaeology Department. And is now where I work for Sydney University Museums.

 

My role at the Sydney University Museums varies from day to day. I work part time as a Collections Officer with the Collection Management team, as well as part time as a Curatorial Assistant for the Nicholson Museum.  These positions afford me the ability to work with the public and behind the scenes of three very different Musuems and Art Galleries! Today I will be working across all three galleries and in the stores photographing my day as I go. In addition to my daily tasks I will also hopefully find some down time to work on a conference paper I’m presenting in two short weeks on my own archaeological research in Northern Greece and the central Balkans. Follow the captions in the Photo Gallery to see where I am and what I am up to!

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A Day in an Archaeological Conservation Program

By on June 29, 2012 in Conservation, Day of Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Education

I’m a Conservation Specialist for the UCLA/Getty Conservation Program, a graduate conservation training program specializing in the conservation of archaeological and ethnographic materials.  In our 3 year course, we train students in the methods and techniques used for the examination and preservation of objects and have them understand the properties of materials, how they deteriorate and ways to slow down or prevent further deterioration.

In a typical day our students attend lectures in the morning on various aspects of conservation and then follow that in the afternoon with work in the lab.  We just had an intake of a new class in the Fall of 2011 and they spent their first year learning about and working on materials such as archaeological ceramics, glass, metals, and  textiles.

In one course they learned about the deterioration of archaeological ceramics and the damage caused by soluble salts. Students then determined how to identify the salts and remove them. Here a student is taking a conductivity reading of wash water as she desalinates a small ceramic vessel.

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Archaeological Conservation in Northern Highland Ecuador

By on August 4, 2011 in Conservation, DayofArch2011, Excavation, Science

I spent this summer working as a conservator for the Pambamarca Archaeological Project (PAP), located in northern highland Ecuador, near the town of Cangahua.  As the conservator on the project, my job was to examine and conserve the finds excavated to ensure their long term preservation and to aid in archaeological research.  Most of the work taking place here is focusing on sites and fortresses located on various hilltops in the region.  The research hopes to understand the indigenous cultures known as the Cayambes, that lived here before the Inca conquered this area in the 1500′s, and also to look at the interactions between the groups after that conquest.

Most of my work is based in the lab and focuses on processing the finds that come in each day.  This can be something as simple as washing some sherds to something more complicated like reconstructing an entire ceramic vessel.  I also sometimes work on site helping archaeologists excavate and lift fragile artifacts.  This is my second year working on the project and here are some of the things I do during a typical work day:

Area where we work

 

The site of Quitoloma, one of the hilltop fortresses excavated by PAP.

 

Finds that come in, such as pottery sherds in bulk, need to be washed daily.

 

When enough of a ceramic vessel is preserved, we reconstruct it. Here I am starting to reconstruct the neck and rim of an aribalo, a vessel form used to hold liquids.

 

This a painted aribalo that was reconstructed. The rim and neck are missing.

 

Because of the missing upper section of the vessel, some of the joins are not well supported. This fragment only attaches on one side and needs extra support. Conservators sometimes do something called "gap-filling" to fill missing areas to keep certain fragments in place. The red arrow points to an area where a fill was placed (made up of a mixture of a resin known as Paraloid B-72 mixed with a material called glass microballoons to make it thicker) to fill the gap below the sherd to support it.

 

Sometimes conservators are called to the site to help archaeologists excavate and lift fragile material. Here I am preparing to lift a fragment of a burnt reed mat.

 

Here is a section of the burnt mat in situ. It was found on the floor of an Incan store room with a thick layer of burnt corn on top. Organic materials don't often preserve well, but luckily this mat was burnt allowing it to survive this long in the soil.

 

The mat was very fragile and in a lot of pieces so it could not easily be excavated and lifted. I needed to do something called block lifting where you excavate around the object and then lift it out in a block of soil. Here is the mat after a facing of Japanese tissue and a reversible resin are applied on the exposed surface. This helps to hold all the fragile fragments together during lifting.

 

Once lifted and back in the lab, the mat could be carefully excavated from the soil and consolidated with a dilute resin when needed to strengthen it.

 

Here is the mat after treatment. It can now be examined and studied to identify the materials and methods used in its construction.

 

Not all of our work is just treating artifacts. Conservators spend a lot of time documenting and recording the treatments they undertake on artifacts. Here a student helps to enter data about artifacts excavated into the project database.

 

We also spent time labeling the artifacts in the lab. We used a barrier coat of Paraloid B-72 applied to a discrete area of the artifact to write the catalog number on using an archival ink pen. This would allow the artifact to be linked to its catalog number, and the archaeological information in the database, in case it ever got disassociated from the label in the bag it was packed in.

 

Since the excavation is run as a field school, it means that students are on the project as part of a course to learn about archaeolgy and archaeological field methods. This gives me an opportunity to teach students about conservation and have them help me in the lab if they are interested. Here a student helps me find joins for a vessel I was reconstructing.

 

So as you can see, archaeological conservators are kept really busy on excavations doing a wide range of activities.  If you are interested in learning more about conservation and what conservators do, or think you might be interested in pursuing studies in conservation, you can check out the website for the American Institute for Conservation or the International Institute for Conservation for more information.

 

 

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A day in ceramics, glass and metals. Conservation at the British Museum

By on August 2, 2011 in Community Archaeology, Conservation, Day of Archaeology, DayofArch2011, Environmental Archaeology, Science

8.55 am. Misting a waterlogged leather purse inside a pot with deionised water.

The purse contained a hoard of silver Civil War coins currently going through the Treasure process. If the leather dries out, it will distort. Treatment is delayed while questions of ownership and ultimate destination for the hoard are resolved but we have pressed for a speedy decision!

9.05 am. Excavating fragments of an Iron Age cauldron from a soil block.

This is just one of a group of bronze cauldrons, some with iron rims and handles, found at Chiseldon.

9:15 am: Identifying old restoration on a bronze portrait head of Augustus under ultra violet light.

The results of the investigation will be published and the head may go on display. You can find out more about the head of Augustus on the British Museum website.

9.22 am Revealing silver inlay in an iron Merovingian axe wanted for The World of Sutton Hoo exhibition that will open in September 2011.

Further details on the handaxe can be found in collections online.

9:30 am: Two 18 month contract posts have just started to clean coins from the Frome hoard, the largest hoard of Roman coins in a single pot found in Britain. They have calculated that they will have to clean about 40 coins each a day to fulfil their contracts.

An extensive blog has been posted by the Portable Antiquities Scheme on the discovery of the Frome Hoard and it will form part of a video conferencing workshop for children.

9:32am: Piecing together fragments from the old Naukratis excavation.

You can read more about the Naukratis research projecton the British Museum research pages.

9:37 am: Reconstructing the bowl that was placed over the mouth of the pot that contained the Frome hoard.

9:54 am: Removing a tiny wisp of cotton wool caught in the gold cloisons of part of the Ostrogothic Domagnano Treasure.

You can learn more about this object on Collections online.

12:32 pm: Reconstructing the pot that contained the Frome Hoard.

12:40 pm: More joins found in the Naukratis material.

12:43 pm: Editing a conservation record on the British Museum computer system. Recently it was announced that the 2 millionth record had been generated and most of these are open to the public via the BM Collections On Line website.

1:58 pm: Consolidating lead items that have formed part of a comparative study of galvanostatic and potentiostatic methods of reduction.

2:23 pm: Still gluing the Naukratis fragments.

2:26 pm: Still building up fragments of the Frome pot. (Note picture on the wall of the pot still in the ground.)

2:59pm: Investigating the Lilleburge assemblage, a collection of Viking objects that includes items still in the small blocks of soil in which they were excavated in 1886 from a long barrow in Norway.

For more details on the Lilleberge assemblage, visit these pages.

3:01 pm: Filling gaps in the Frome bowl.

4:58 pm: Examining an X-ray of a cheek piece from the East Leicestershire helmet made from iron overlaid with silver gilt. The helmet, which dates from just before the Roman invasion of Britain, was part of what was originally called the Hallaton hoard and was buried full of Iron Age silver coins

The Hallaton hoard has been acquired by Leicestershire Museums Service and Helen Sharp blogs about the treasure elsewhere on this site.

5:23 pm: Removing tarnish from an Anglo-Saxon silver gilt buckle for The World of Sutton Hoo exhibition that will open in September 2011.

You can find more information on the buckle on the BM site.

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