Research News Issue 19: Spring 2013 | PDF - English Heritage

© English Heritage
A group of flint arrowheads.
These required merely
gentle cleaning
their current condition, and will be displayed
alongside each other, so there will be no
work to deconstruct these old treatments
or reassemble the object by placing the
gold cover back onto the button. However,
piecing together the past treatments that
have been carried out allows us to pass on a
more complete record of the object.
For many of the objects, such as flint tools,
animal bones or pottery, it will only be
necessary to do some light cleaning, such
as removing soil or dust. This allows the
objects to be easily interpreted by the
visitor without over-cleaning or removing
any potentially useful information, such
as residues that may have been deposited
during the use of the objects.
In other cases the objects will be mounted
or lighted in a specific way in order to allow
the visitor to appreciate them better, and no
conservation work is required. An incised
chalk plaque is covered in soil from the
burial context and this obscures the carvings
and makes it difficult to appreciate them.
Removing the soil would jeopardise the
object’s surface and would be considered
unethical. As this is an archaeological
artefact, it is entirely appropriate that it
should retain this surface. The incised lines
can be shown much more clearly by simply
casting a low-angled light across the surface
than by any amount of cleaning that could be
done in the laboratory.
All conservation work is based on an assessment
carried out by an accredited conservator. It
has been taking place at Fort Cumberland,
Portsmouth, under supervision.
Diana McCormack
© English Heritage
a
b
Incised chalk plaque (a) Under
normal lighting the decoration
is not visible, and the surface
cannot be cleaned. (b) a
low angled light allows the
decoration to be displayed
without further treatment
5