British Museum: Behind the scenes with conservation teams

The Day of Archaeology 2011 project has produced a behind the scenes article about conservation and scientific research teams at the British Museum. It shows a day in the life of conservators, offering an insight into the work and people behind the collections.

The Day of Archaeology 2011 project aims to give a window into the daily lives of archaeologists. Written by over 400 contributors, it chronicles what they did on one day, July 29th 2011, from those in the field through to specialists working in laboratories and behind computers.

[caption id="attachment_1308" align="alignnone" width="522" caption="8.55 am. Misting a waterlogged leather purse inside a pot with deionised water."][/caption]

"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!"

[caption id="attachment_1307" align="alignnone" width="522" caption="9.05 am. Excavating fragments of an Iron Age cauldron from a soil block."][/caption]

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

To see the full article visit A day in ceramics, glass and metals. Conservation at the British Museum This article by Day of Archaeology, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.