Archaeological Conservation Institute 5/16-6/2 2011

The view from one of the CCR's laboratories.

During the fall 2010 semester I enrolled in the Three Ancient Cities class taught by Dr. Susan Stevens. The three cities were: Athens, Greece, Rome, Italy, and Alexandria, Egypt. Dr. Stevens is Chair of the Classics Dept. and leads the Lynchburg Chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA). One of the lectures on campus was brought to us by the AIA: “Conservation in Archeology: Case Studies in the Mediterranean Region” by Roberto Nardi, Centro di Conservazione Archeologica (Roma). I was mildly interested because I was enjoying the class, but I had no idea where this lecture would lead me. Roberto Nardi talked to us about mosaic conservation in Zeugma, Turkey, conserving the apse mosaic in the Monastery of Saint Catherine in Sinai, conservation of the triumphal arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum, the bronze centaurs of the Capitoline Museum in Rome, and the cleaning of the wall paintings of the Amiriya Madrasa in Yemen. More of his projects are mentioned here:
   
http://www.cca-roma.org/en/attivita/cantieri

The lecture was completely inspiring and Nardi's love of conserving important sites around the world was evident. Then I went home and watched more videos on the CCA's youtube channel. 
Dr. Stevens took Roberto Nardi out for a glass of wine post-lecture and they discussed the possibility of Randolph students visiting Italy for some sort of study abroad. A few months later, this was the result!

http://www.cca-roma.org/en/node/468

An itinerary was made, flights were booked, and fees were paid. We had a lecture and lab schedule for the weekdays and side trips to historic places, including Rome. An extra four days at the end of the class included Venice and another day to explore Rome. I decided to go for the whole 'shabang,' though originally we were set to take the train to Venice and I was looking forward to seeing the countryside. It turns out flying on EasyJet was cheaper and much quicker (*stomach turn*, see 'Aero-hostile' blog entry). Anyway, I thought this trip would look mighty good on a graduate school application since I had determined I wanted to be an arts conservator. I had to scratch that dream when I found out Randolph would not offer any financial awards for me to meet the undergraduate chemistry requirements for a conservation program (it would add another year). (Boo!) After this reality sunk in, I was stuck with a non-transferable round-trip ticket to Rome. I considered not going and losing money on the ticket, but my friends, family, professors, adviser, and Dean Wallace said I had to go, so I did.  (Honestly, there was some arm twisting.)

Our days at the convent consisted of an 8/8:30am breakfast, 9am lecture, 10:45am coffee, 1pm lunch, 2:30pm laboratory, 4:15pm coffee, 4:30pm laboratory, and 7/8pm dinner. It was a full day for me, someone not used to having every moment scheduled; in fact, I'm really bad at full schedules.

Here are some of our lecture topics: The Villa of Sant' Imbenia in Sardinia, The Roman Villa, Cultural Heritage, Opus Sectile, Fresco Painting, Deterioration of Materials, Diffusion and Communication, Documentation, Preventative Conservation during Excavation, Principles of Conservation, and the Future of Conservation. Since I am not an archaeologist I approached this with the eye of an  'art historian/conservationist,' albeit an amateur one. There are photos coming up of the laboratory materials and techniques.


(Note: One funny thing about being part of Roberto's class was his definition of documentation. You see, Roberto uses video as part of his practice, which is wonderful -- except when you are the one being filmed! I believe it may have been the second day of class when through the door walked Giaccobe, one of the drivers, with his digital movie camera. He followed us everywhere, and we joked we were part of a classics reality show. Roberto had originally wanted a closed-circuit television link from the Museum of Alghero in Sardinia to our lab, but he wasn't wired for that yet, thank goodness! Giacobbe was just doing his job and we did bond over Terence Malick (whose win at Cannes Giacobbe updated me on), Bertolucci's movie 'The Conformist and Antonioni. I had taken Post-WWII Italian Cinema way-back-when at Virginia Tech, so I knew a little.)

Sant' Imbenia was a villa on a Sardinian beach, dated to about the 1st century BCE. It was 150m wide, 2 floors and had 49 rooms. It did a lot of maritime business and some underwater excavation will be necessary to study ruins and the piers. It was surveyed in the 1960 and the first excavation was in 1990. There is still no general plan of the villa, but what is known is that the 2nd floor collapsed on to the 1st floor, leaving piles of marble opus sectile, mosaic flooring, blue glass, stucco, and fresco paintings. There are over 200 boxes of pieces. I believe we cleaned about 2 or 3 boxes, if that tells you anything!

The laboratory where we worked.

A sampling of Sant' Imbenia.

Pieces of an ancient fresco painting.

Color and design have outlasted centuries of sun and sea air.

Part of the apse fresco, you can see it curves upward on the edges.

Dolphins!

Dolphin on a column.

So many pieces, even the tiniest are essential to the whole.

Roberto had staff to teach us the proper way of handling and cleaning the fragments. Chiara had worked with Roberto for many years, and was his project manager:

http://www.cca-roma.org/en/node/318

Three beauties, so friendly and patient with us -- Chiara, Flavia, Francesca

Flavia and Francesca were attending a conservation graduate program in London, but were back for the summer to work for Roberto, teach us conservation technique, and guide us through small hilltowns and Rome.

Since these pieces came out of a pile of weathered rubble, they needed to be cleaned gently. First there was the dry clean. This was a brushing off of the dirt (but not the paint or mortar!). We wore surgical masks because of all of the dust. The scalpel was for really hardened bits of dirt, which usually had to be softened with water.

Dusty dry clean.

The pieces were then placed on a marked off section of table for those doing the wet clean, a process a bit more satisfying. Crusty stuff warranted a few layers of tissue sprayed with water mixed with a gentle biocide, a large, hand-rolled swab (Chiara warned us it was harder than it looked, & she was right!) was then rolled back and forth over the surface of the fragment. This gentle process demanded a lot of patience because some of the paint would actually come off if you scrubbed too hard. It may sound trite, but to take a piece of something so old and sit for a long time thinking about its relevance, focusing on it and nothing else, was probably one of the more meditative experiences I've had. I was ready to ask Roberto for a job.

Wet clean. I should have gotten a before and after. And a picture of my perfectly-rolled swab.

 After the pieces were cleaned, the 'like' pieces were consolidated, and the million-piece puzzle began. It was time to piece these bits together -- if possible. Some had been done before we even arrived, but we were able to contribute a little.

Buckets of sand helped support curved pieces of the fresco.

Mapping out the joins on clear plastic would help later in trying to piece together the whole. Roberto had no idea what the villa had looked like; his team would have to build it one fragment at a time.

A nice blue frescoed-flower.

Gina was the hero of our time there. She had 40 joins and based her research presentation on her method of looking at the direction of the brushstrokes, not just the edge of the pieces. She just earned a math degree from Grove City College and wants to be a conservator.

 The next entry: Fun with marble and fresco free-play.