Today was my first day, both at the
Kelsey and in conservation. I was excited and nervous to move from
archives and images to actual objects. The conservation lab is on the third
floor of the old section of the museum. The lab consists of two
rooms, both with a central work bench set up. The first room is the
newer section of the lab, which used to be a research and study
space. There is a large window which lets in a lot of natural light.
This room is where the computer stations are set up, and where I
worked today. The other room is the old conservation lab space, which
now seems to be mainly storage. The drawers of objects being worked
on is in this room, and the photography studio is set up in a niche
to one side.
Suzanne had me start today by reading
sections from a couple of publications about ceramics. The first was
a handbook designed to quickly explain how to handle objects
for non-conservators. I also read two chapters in a book about
ceramics, one about deterioration and the other about preservation.
This book went through
the ways and reasons ceramics and glass deteriorates, such as low
porosity makes the object more prone to breakage and high tension
pottery (which is fired in high temperatures) can be 'sprung' where
the tension inside the ceramic is released when it breaks and thus it
cannot be put back together.
The third book was a short summary
about the excavation at Seleucia. The ceramic that I was given was
from that dig, so it was interesting to read. The excavation was led
by the University of Michigan from 1927 to 1937. In Iraq, Seleucia
was the Parthian capital on the Seleucid empire. By the Tigris and
Euphrates, much of the ceramics found at Seleucia have salt deposits.
After reading about ceramics, I was
able to start working on an object. I was given a zip lock bag with
potsherds from Selecia. The piece I was given was 0000.03.4030. Working on the lab bench in
the main room, I took out each piece and examined it. I did not use
gloves, as I needed to feel and grip the sherds better. The oils on
my hands should not effect the pot, but being unable to properly feel
or hold the ceramic could result in damage.
I wrote a condition report and created
a record in the Kelsey conservation database, describing the ceramic
and its condition. It was a small jug with one handle, probably less
than a foot high. The wall thickness varied, particularly at the base
where it was very thin in the middle but very thick along the rim.
The bottom rim was a distinctive shape with incised circles and
flattened sides. There was a second rim that mimicked the thick
bottom rim between the neck and body of the jug. The clay was a dun brown color and quite flaky. The exterior had a light glaze with small sections of blue-green and iridescent colors. The interior of the jug was also glazed, with a dark brown color that lighten to grey in some areas near the bottom. Both the interior and exterior glazes had chipped off in places and showed cracks throughout the piece. The interior also has salt deposits on perhaps half the the sherds, and the entire piece has dirt and grime on it. There are 33 pieces,
the largest of which was about 9cm by 7cm.
After the condition report, I started
to piece the potsherds together. I was able to fit 30 sherds
together, but I have yet to figure out where the final three small pieces go. This
will probably be easier when I actually start to adhere the pieces so
that I can see spots where things are missing. Right now, I was just
putting pieces together to see if they fit, then trying to carefully
space it out on the tray in order. It is surprisingly hard to find a
good way to lay potsherds so that the 3D object is laid out on a 2D
surface but still recognizable. After fitting most of the sherds
together, I noticed that the upper rim of the jug as well as some
spots around the base are missing. The pieces along the base of the
jug might need to be filled in for structural purposes, but the
missing top will probably not be replaced. At the Kelsey, the primary
aim is the preserve the archaeological artifacts, not reconstruct or
restore them.
The next step was to photograph the
potsherds for documentation. Using the photography studio set up in
the next room, I arranged the potsherds and took pictures. The camera
and tripod system was quite nice, allowing me to photograph the
sherds from directly overhead. The sherds were photographed on each
side. These images were then edited in photoshop, where I added
labels, cropped the images, and corrected the color. I created
records in the Kelsey photograph database and added the edited
images.
Next week, I will begin the treatment.
Claudia thinks the salt deposits are insoluble, but out of curiosity, I
will probably try desalinization by soaking the potsherds in
deionized water and checking the conductivity to see if salts come
out. When that is done, the potsherds need to be cleaned, and then I
can join the pieces together with an adhesive. Because of the missing
pieces, and the fact that most ceramics cannot be joined perfectly, I
will work from top to bottom so that any gaps or issues occur at the
base where there is more flexibility and space for work.
Work space: The potsherds on the work
bench. The bag in which the pot sherds had been stored can be seen on
the left, and my condition report is on the right. At this point,
most but not all of the sherds are in the correct place.
A work in progress: The potsherds are
all laid out, mostly in order. The sherds on the left are one side,
showing the interior from neck to base, and the sherds on the right
are the other side of the jug, showing the exterior. The different
glazes can be seen.
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