In America there is a trend to deaccession objects that no longer fit within a collection.\u00a0 However, this is a risky undertaking for objects in archaeological contexts because of the interdependence of objects within a site.\u00a0 Deaccessioning part of a collection could compromise reliable data sets or future analysis.\u00a0 Disposal, sale, or transfer to another institution are equally problematic.\u00a0 \u201cNo one wants rusty nails.\u201d\u00a0 Reburial is a tool that has been used for large-scale organics such as shipwrecks, and Emily cited the reburial of underwater material in Marstrand, Sweden<\/a>.<\/p>\n At Colonial Williamsburg<\/a>, the conservators are faced with a collection of 60 million artifacts (!), and over half of the historic area is yet to be excavated.\u00a0 Emily discussed a project involving the transfer of the archaeological collection to new climate-controlled storage spaces, <\/ins>including 50 pallets of architectural material (brick and stone fragments non-scientifically excavated from the historic area in the 1930s and 1940s).\u00a0 These pallets took up 5,000 cubic feet of storage and 45% of the total budget.\u00a0 The material was mostly non-diagnostic, not requested or accessed, and attracting animal infestation (evidenced by prolific nesting of rodents and insects).\u00a0 Given these concerns, the decision was made to re-bury non-diagnostic brick and stone fragments with the understanding that they could be re-excavated if necessary.<\/p>\n Very specific details were given about the re-burial choices.\u00a0 For example, the fragments were bagged and placed in their original pine crates with Tyvek tags (written in both Sharpie and pencil).\u00a0 They were grouped by site, only stacked 2 deep, and GPS marked.\u00a0 The crates were placed in an existing excavated cellar within the historic area and backfilled with sand.<\/p>\n I am particularly grateful when speakers present positives and negatives of <\/ins>a given choice, and Emily outlined both.\u00a0 Due to financial restraints, the original pine crates were used.\u00a0 If she were to do this again, HDPE would be preferred, as the pine will eventually decompose and some of the archaeological context could be lost.\u00a0 Individual fragments were not labeled due to time and the sheer number of small pieces, but this would have been preferred.\u00a0 Ideally, they would have reburied the material in a trench outside the historic area in the event that the house would be rebuilt in the future.\u00a0 The obvious lack of access to the collection was mentioned, and the concern that reburied collections could become \u201cout of sight, out of mind.\u201d<\/p>\n This method of reburial is not without ethical and spatial concerns, but given these limitations, there are vast preservation gains for the collection as a whole.\u00a0 There is no correct answer for these difficult decisions, but I agree with Emily\u2019s approach that we need to view archaeological collections in a \u201cholistic rather than particularistic\u201d way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During the archaeological-themed session of the Objects Specialty Group, Emily Williams spoke about her experience with a critical issue for archaeological conservators:\u00a0 vast quantities of objects and limited storage space.\u00a0 I have been tangentially involved in decisions to rebury large architectural marble columns in situ at the Etruscan site of Poggio Colla, so I was … Continue reading “AIC’s 39th Annual Meeting – Objects Session, June 1, “Deep Storage: Reburial as a Conservation Tool” by Emily Williams”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,32,16],"tags":[70,195,262,501,628,854,964,1035],"class_list":["post-1222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annual-meeting","category-objects","category-specialty-sessions","tag-aics-39th-annual-meeting","tag-brick","tag-colonial-williamsburg","tag-hermit-crabs","tag-marstrand","tag-reburial","tag-stone","tag-tyvek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.conservators-converse.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Williams_image_0011.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n