Section 4: Composite artefacts (PDF 20858kb) - National Museum of ...

Proceedings of Metal 2004 National Museum of Australia Canberra ACT 4-8 October2004ABN 70 592 297 967Houses Trust, 1984) were raised from the wreck in 1996, and one in 1999. The bowls aremade of glazed earthenware with an elaborate underglaze blue-and-white transfer printpattern. The bowl surrounds, down pipes, flush plates and pipe from flush pump to toilet aremade from lead. Two of the toilets had a large copper flush pump attached to the lead. Thepumps are made from a hollow copper cylinder containing a lead, iron, leather and woodmechanism. The base flange of each toilet was attached to the wooden decking with copperalloy tacks.Two of the toilets (124.00009 and 124.00318) were in poor condition withconsiderable loss of ceramic and distortion of the lead (see Figure 2). However one toilet(124.00010) was in better condition (see Figure 1) with an intact, elaborately patternedceramic bowl. This object generated considerable public interest and publicity both at thetime of its excavation, and up to the present day (unknown, 1997; Brown, 2003), with thepattern and appearance of the ceramic being the focus of most attention. It was clear that theconservation of the ceramic was critical. The preservation of the ceramic and leadcomponents of the most intact toilet (124.00010) is the focus of this publication.Figure 1 – Toilet 124.00010 After excavation© Published by the National Museum of Australia www.nma.gov.au466