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

Abstract

In theoretical Archaeological University courses it is often impossible to act directly on artifacts owing to the lack of products and working spaces and the poor availability of suitable materials. However, the archaeologist’s work is mainly carried out in the field and in most cases requires direct conservative procedures on archaeological ceramics to allow their study and documentation. As such, the lack of practical restoration laboratories within the 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 inside 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 learned in the classroom. Trainees were put to work directly both on archaeological and modern ceramic materials, so as to learn which materials to use and how to make all relevant operations for the cultural heritage conservation (cleaning, sticking and integration of missing parts). All the operations carried out during the course followed the same procedures currently required on 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 in the poster as an example.