Museum
Conservation
ISAC Conservation Laboratory
Conservation is the profession dedicated to the study and preservation of material culture. Conservation professionals examine, study, and make recommendations for the proper care and storage of cultural material. When necessary, a conservator will carry out treatments to stabilize and preserve fragile, deteriorating material. All treatments are completely documented, and the conservation records are considered archival documents.
The role of preventive conservation is key to the modern practice of conservation. Preventive conservation attempts to maintain a stable, inert atmosphere for the objects in order to slow down the natural rate of deterioration. This includes removing sources of pollutants that might cause damaging chemical reactions and optimizing environmental parameters like relative humidity and light levels. As the immediate environment is modified to enhance the stability of the artifacts, the need for intervention is minimized.
The ISAC Conservation Laboratory is devoted to the conservation of three-dimensional archaeological objects made from inorganic materials including metal, stone, ceramic, and glass, as well as organic materials such as wood, bone, ivory, leather, and plant matter.
The ISAC conservation lab.
A Brief History
The ISAC Conservation Laboratory was founded in 1974 with funding from the Women's Board of the University of Chicago. Barbara Hall, the first professional museum conservator at ISAC, was responsible for establishing the original conservation laboratory at ISAC. During her tenure at ISAC, conservation as a profession was firmly established. For the first time, treatments were documented and appropriate conservation record photographs were maintained. Additionally, over a dozen pre-program and post-graduate interns passed through the laboratory.
In 1998, after nearly two years of a major renovation and construction project that provided the museum and storage areas with climate control, the conservation laboratory was relocated to the second floor of ISAC's new wing. This new laboratory has approximately 1600 square feet of space (nearly four times the size of the original laboratory), with a separate office and cleaning room. The new laboratory has a greatly improved localized exhaust system as well as a more general exhaust system in the cleaning room and additional equipment.
A glazed brick from the Sin Temple in its 1930s crate before treatment.
Special Project
The conservation laboratory is currently working on a special project to conserve the glazed brick façade from the Sin Temple at Sargon II's palace at Khorsabad, Iraq. Known as Dur Sharrukan (Sargon's Fortress), the eighth century BCE site was first excavated by the French in the mid-19th century. Victor Place, one of the directors of the excavation, published artist’s renditions of many of the architectural elements that were uncovered. These 19th century watercolors of the Sin Temple façade reveal an amazing frieze of a tree, a plow, and animals and human figures. ISAC's Iraq expedition began excavations at the site in 1929, and the Sin Temple façade was excavated during the 1932–1933 ISAC season. Though badly damaged, the highly colored glazed surfaces of the bricks revealed upon excavation were promising enough to make the careful removal and packing the 282 bricks for shipment to Chicago a worthwhile endeavor.
When the thirty-five wooden crates arrived, museum staff recognized how daunting the unpacking and stabilization of the bricks would be. While a small number of the bricks were unpacked and treated in preparation for a museum gallery renovation in the early 2000s, it is only recently that the conservation lab has been able to dedicate more focus to this time-consuming and challenging task. Each brick requires individual support before it can be lifted out of its crate. Then, for each brick, conservators must clean and stabilize the fragments before adhering them back together.
An important component of the project includes the resumption of investigations into the clay body and glazes that began in the early 2000s. Research initiatives will seek to answer questions about composition, methods of manufacture, and deterioration mechanisms.
The University of Chicago dedicated a segment of their series Inside the Lab, which showcases the work of laboratories on campus, to this special conservation project.