Restoration in archaeological university courses: A practical ceramic conservation laboratory in the graduate school in archaeology – UNIFI

Abstract

University courses on conservation are often mainly theoretical, and it is often impossible to act directly on artifacts owing to the lack of suitable conservation products and working spaces as well as the scarcity of archaeological materials. However, the archaeologist’s work is mainly carried out in the field and, in most cases, requires direct conservation procedures on archaeological finds to allow their study and documentation. As such, the lack of practical restoration laboratories within university curricula represents a serious gap in the training of future professional archaeologists. In 2016 a practical laboratory of ceramic conservation was established for the first time within the Graduate School of Archaeology of the University of Florence. The goal was to give students the opportunity to put into practice the theoretical conservation lessons received in the classroom. Trainees were put to work directly on both ancient and modern pottery, in order to learn which materials to use and how to carry out all the relevant steps for the cultural heritage conservation (cleaning, gluing and integration of missing parts). All the operations carried out during the course followed the same procedures currently required for the conservation of archaeological ceramics by the Superintendency for Archaeological Heritage of Tuscany. All the steps taken in the laboratory are similar to those implemented on a Mycenaean stirrup jar reported here as an example.