It is the last week of the year, and as so many do, I took some time to reflect on what lies behind me. For me, 2019 has changed a lot! I decided to quit my Marketing job, leave my friends, family and my home country behind, and move to Durham in Northern England to do what I have always wanted to do: Study Archaeology and learn how to treat and conserve these hundreds-and-thousands-of-years-old objects that are still being found in abundance. As a converting student with only little archaeological experience I was a bit nervous when I set foot into the conservation lab for the first time. But those doubts proved to be unnecessary very quickly.
The first semester in the MA in Conservation of Archaeological and Museum Objects program at Durham University was incredibly exciting. A lot of work, yes, but me and my nine fellow students learned so much. We had theoretical lectures on the profession’s history, the guidelines and regulations that conservators aim to follow, and on the treatment options of various materials – from ceramics, stone and glass to metals like copper, iron, tin, lead and silver. For our assignments, we chose from a list of objects that we wanted to learn more about regarding their conservation history and the treatment approaches that have been developed. This way I had the chance to write essays about the conservation work that was undertaken on the Portland Vase at the British Museum, as well as to do in-depth research on how Roman mosaic pavements used to be treated in the past and how those technical and ethical approaches have changed over time.
One of my main reasons for applying to this program in the first place was the large proportion of practical conservation work that – after only a few weeks – we already did on real objects. We learned how to clean and consolidate glass fragments from a burial site in Dibsi Faraj, Syria, how to make moulds and replications of Roman coins and archaeological ceramic fragments, as well as how to clean and remove corrosion from copper coins that were found at the Binchester Roman Fort excavation site.
Even though the actual techniques of cleaning and mechanically removing corrosion were not too difficult, we learned early on about the ethical question of how far to go with our treatments. How clean does the glass need to be in order to be properly stabilised while also maintaining its authentic historical appearance? And for that matter, is not all degrees of cleaning potentially damaging the object due to its irreversibility? So maybe better not to clean at all? And where to stop when removing the brownish-green corrosion layer on those copper coins? Honestly, mastering that judgement will probably take us years, but being confronted with those questions so early on in our education made us aware of the importance of a considerate and cautious approach that conservators should apply when treating objects.
An especially exciting moment for me was when we received broken ceramics from Raby Castle for treatment to allow them to go on display back at the castle. My object was a beautiful cup that had broken into three parts and needed some cleaning as well. Adhering the single fragile parts back together not only taught me some useful hand skills, but also proved quite time consuming. Being patient with treatments is thus yet another valuable lesson we learned this term.
The conservation theory and practice modules were complemented with a weekly seminar where we discussed various ethical conservation questions. Each one of us prepared two of the topics and led the respective class discussions. Some of the topics we discussed were our responsibilities towards objects of dubious provenance, how we should treat human remains, how to balance public access to objects while protecting them from deterioration at the same time, as well as the increasing importance for public outreach in our profession. Having students from all around the world in this program in my opinion made those discussions even more interesting as we could talk about examples and cases from our home countries.
As conservators who work in a museum often cooperate with Collection Care Managers and Curators, it is a huge advantage that we are sharing two of our modules with students from the Museum and Artefact Studies program. One of them is our Care of Collections module where we learn about the various agents of decay and how to protect objects and collections in the best possible ways when they are being handled, displayed and stored. Last term we were taught how to monitor and control the effects of humidity, light, temperature and pollution. Again, through various guest lectures, case studies and practical demonstrations theory and practice are being combined in this module. There is actually a Tinytag (an environmental monitoring device) set up in my bedroom right now! It collects data on humidity and temperature over the Christmas break, and will allow me to evaluate the results and to give recommendations on whether archaeological iron objects could be stored in my room.
Lastly, one of my personal favourites is the Artefact Studies course where we not only learn about the traditional production processes of various objects and materials, but also how to investigate and read historic artefacts nowadays. During the first term we were all given an un-researched object from the Durham River Wear Project – a project during which more than 15,000 small finds have been recovered from the riverbed close to the twelfth century Elvet Bridge. We were taught how to properly photograph and draw these objects, and how to use EDXRF analysis to investigate its material composition. The rest is a lot of library work and database research. This assignment is still ongoing, and I am sure we will all have exciting research results on what our objects are, how they were manufactured, and maybe even who used them and why.
With this I am concluding my review of our first term, and I am looking forward to another semester full of interesting, challenging, and mind-broadening conservation experiences!
Stefanie
Student in the Master of Arts Program in Conservation of Archaeological and Museum Objects