Hello from Chedworth!

The Chedworth Excavations blog has been very quiet over the last four months but the mosaics have been carefully protected and building work has begun.  The photograph shows the scaffolding in progress over the whole of the West Range. 

The project will be completed by March 2012 and we will then excavate and conserve the rest of the corridor.  The blog will return! 

In the meantime, please enjoy our posts from last year.  In the posts below you will find the conservators, the protection of the historic fabric, and the story of the excavations. 

Best wishes,

Guy

Meet the Team… Victoria Frenzel

Victoria Frenzel

Victoria began her studies in archaeology and classics in Berlin at the Freie Universitat. After several years as a practicing archaeologist and conservator of objects and architecture from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Modern Age in Berlin and Brandenburg, she sought further education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, studying the conservation of mural paintings and historic surfaces.  Conservation of architectural surfaces has taken her to work in Africa in the Sudan as well as Britain for the Chedworth mosaics. Fluent in German, French, Latin, Italian and English, Victoria is a freelance conservator who also works in a bookstore specializing in art literature.

Meet the Team… Hannah Moots

Hannah Moots

Hannah studied anthropology at the University of Chicago, focusing on Africa, conducting research and excavation in Niger. Working in the fossil preparation laboratory at the University of Chicago, she developed an interest in palaeontology and archaeological research, leading to a Master’s degree in archaeological science from Cambridge University. Beyond laboratory based research, Hannah has worked in museum settings as a collections manager at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and a historic interpreter for a monument site in Oyne, Scotland, demonstrating ancient techniques of bronze working and tablet weaving for visitors. She has taken opportunities to interpret archaeology and heritage for the public by teaching for Project Exploration in Chicago, as well as for the Higher Education Field Academy at Cambridge.

Meet the Team… Vicki de Baerdemaeker

A books, papers and archive conservation professional by training, Vicki studied liberal arts as well as paper and books conservation at Bruges, specializing in parchment conservation, iron gall ink treatment and the conservation of wax seals.  She has worked conserving the archives for the Library of Bruges, Archives of Bruges, OCMW archive, and also the local archives of Tielt. As a member of ICON, Vicki has volunteered for Blue Shield emergency conservation projects, including the lost archives at Cologne.  Additional interests including book binding and headbands as well as fine hand crafts such as embroidery, weaving and knitting.  I am passionately looking for an internship in conservation of books and paper after the work at Chedworth is completed.  Fluent in Dutch, French, English and German.  vicki-de-baerdemaeker@hotmail.com

Vicki de Baerdemaeker

Meet the Team… Rebecca Bradshaw

Rebecca Bradshaw

Studying ancient history at the University of Warwick, Rebecca developed an interest in classical history including Latin and Greek language study and Hieroglyphs translation, leading to a Master’s degree in Egyptology from the University of Cambridge. As an archaeologist, Rebecca has given back to her community in Cambridge through work teaching local young people about archaeology and heritage at the Higher Education Field Academy. After her conservation work on the mosaics here at Chedworth is complete, Rebecca is excavating in Egypt for the remainder of the year, in both the Sudan and the Nile Delta region. With a passion for teaching, travelling, journalism and photography, she has lived and worked in much of the Middle East, India, Nepal and the Far East as well as Turkey and parts of Europe. rbradshaw87@gmail.com

Meet the Team… Amanda Watts

Having always had an interest in heritage and preservation, Amanda holds two Master’s in archaeological conservation from University College London, and one in archaeology from Boston University. Alongside her studies, she has spent the past nine years as a practising archaeologist and conservator. Archaeological projects have included the Giza Plateau Mapping Project, excavations in Rapa Nui and Fort Clark, ND, and contracting for the US Department of the Army. Equally active in conservation projects, Amanda has worked in the USA, Turkey, Egypt and the UK as well as being the project manager of the conservation of Roman mosaics at Chedworth for the past year. In the upcoming year Amanda will be working at the Museum of London full time in their archaeological conservation laboratory.  wattsac@gmail.com

Meet the Team… Chris Cleere

Director of Cleere Conservation, Chris has been conserving objects and archaeological sites for nearly 15 years. He studied conservation at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology in London, and has since worked all over the world as a stone conservator, focusing on the Mediterranean countries as well as Eastern Europe.  Cleere Conservation studios are currently based in Rye, where he offers conservation and restoration services as well as manufacture and finishing of materials for sculpture artists, as well as opening studio space to local artists. To find out more, visit www.chriscleere.co.uk for conservation and artists’ resources.

Chris Cleere

A stitch in time…

Stitches lacuna

Conervators at work

Another conservator at work

Stone masons working alongside conservators – literally.

Stitches in place

Detail of corridor mosaic

For the past few weeks, we have been busy stabilizing the mosaics on site.  The wobbly bits are in danger of getting broken or moved around during the upcoming phase of construction, so we are tacking them down with a removable stitch.  The stitch is made of geotextile (just like the ones we talked about for covering the mosaic) cut into tiny strips and tacked down with a removable acrylic adhesive on top of the tesserae. 

This method allows us to keep the loose vulnerable tesserae in place with a brace but with a very light touch.  Once the building is up and mosaics are ready to be unveiled, the stitches will be removed with a tiny swab of acetone and the mosaics will be once again just as they were found during the excavation.  This is a very time consuming process, so all hands have been on deck for over a week solid now.  We’re finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel, and hope to be finished by the end of this week with stitch bracing all four excavated mosaics. 

Here are some images of what the stitches look like on the mosaic.

Here comes the sun

At last the sun has come out and Chedworth can be seen in all its beauty, the mosaics are drying after the final cleaning and the colours showing more radiant than ever before. The sun is gradually drying the pavements and as a result the base supporting the tesserae layer is becoming firmer and holding the tesserae in position. This is very satisfying for the conservators as it means very little work will be required to preserve them in the “as found” condition. This means that visitors in the future will be able to see the mosaics exactly as the archaeologists saw them when they were originally discovered, without any restoration or modern interpretation.

As time goes on and the conservators become more familiar with both the scope and type archaeological material and how the design of the new building will enhance the presentation it becomes clear just how impressive the new display at Chedworth will be. The mosaic that is emerging from beneath the asphalt path is currently covered with wood and plastic roofs, with a protective sheet on the surface and the centre section is still covered with asphalt, but even in this condition the scale, at over 35 metres long, is striking and it is hard to imagine just how impressive this will look when it all is revealed and properly displayed in the building.

Things are moving up a gear as September starts with the archaeologists back to uncover the archaeology in rooms 7 and 8 in order that it can be assessed and recorded, then made safe before the building work begins. Also the stone masons are here removing the capping from the Victorian walls of the west range and levelling the same ready to receive the footings for the new building. As the activity increases the conservators have now designed and implemented a new survey system to record the condition of the mosaics and will very soon start reattaching loose material and protecting vulnerable areas before recovering begins.

There is still a lot to see here and a lot of experts all in one place who are available to discuss the works currently underway with visitors. So if you want to hear the whole story direct from the horses mouth come and visit us while the sun still shines at Chedworth.

Give me shelter

A few weeks back, we decided to TAKE COVER (see post of the very same name) and build some temporary shelters over the exposed mosaics in order to keep the rain off of them and help ease them into life on the surface.  It is difficult to say much about their condition and how to care for them when they are freshly excavated in a meaningful way, since their state will change so much as they acclimate to the surface conditions. 

As you may have noticed, it has been a very rainy few weeks here in the Cotswolds, and the mosaics would have been exposed to this direct water for the first time if our shelters had not gone up.  We are happy to say that the shelters have stopped the rain and allowed to the mosaics to slowly dry out a little bit in the past few weeks.  The mortar and surrounding material has firmed up between the tesserae, making them more stable than when first excavated.  The mosaics appear to need less intervention than originally thought because the soft mortar has firmed up on its own when given a chance to air out a bit.  With this protection from the shelters, we can monitor the natural changed happening to the mosaics as they are exposed to air and how they are improving on their own, then decide what further intervention might be needed. 

A snap judgement made based on their condition a month ago would have been unnecessary intervention, as they are stabilizing on their own with only some adjustments to their environment.  This leads the conservators to believe that the condition will naturally improve further once the buildings are on top of the space and the air temperature and moisture content is even more stable.  Once again, the wise and light touch of the conservator has come to great results.  Just doing our job 🙂