“Urkesh: archeologia, conservazione e restauro,”
Kermes 13, pp. 41-48.
An effective comparison is presented at the beginning of this papers concerning restoration at Tell Mozan: the archaeologist (and specifically the field director) acts as a conductor. All the different aspects of an exaction need to be harmonized together, as a symphony well-executed by an orchestra.
The aim of the archaeologists is double: to preserve the antiquities and to make them accessible (i.e. understandable) to a wider public (of specialists or tourists). This implies also a defined and shared deontological perspective: “Lo scopo dell’archeologia non deve limitarsi all’estrazione di manufatti da una matrice stratificata […]. È però altrettanto vero che il compito dell’archeologo deve essere al tempo stesso di comprendere, e in un certo senso di ‘estrarre’, la piena valenza culturale del manufatto” [“The purpose of archaeology does not limit to extract manufacts from a stratified matrix (…). In the meanwhile, the aim of the archaeologist is to understand, and under a certain perspective to ‘extract’, the whole cultural meaning of the manufact#148; translation by mDP] (p. 41).
To fulfil this purpose, a connection and interaction between archaeologists and restorers is a necessity: further, archaeologists have to think as restorers and conversely restorers have to reflect as archaeologists. This “corrispondenza d’amorosi sensi” [“correspondence of amorosos senses”, quoting U. Foscolo’s poetry Dei sepolcri (On sepulchres), 1807, l. 30] leads both the specialists, ‘loving’ the antiquities, to think together (each under his peculiar perspective and specialization) about the best strategies to preserve the structural remains and the artefacts recovered from the ground [on this topic see also Bonetti and Buccellati 2003].
Restoration turns out to be an essential step in the archaeological work and cannot be avoided or left over. The approach on restoration and preservation applied at Urkesh is then further explained: instead of applying a strong and invasive restoration (with cement or other modern material), the archaeologists (and, above all, G. Buccellati) decided to use metal coverings on which some canvas are laying down. This innovative technique [better described in Buccellati, G. 2006] allows to render the perception of ancient monumental structures and, throughout the use of different colours, to define the functionality of different portions of the same structures [see e.g. the application of this procedure to the Royal Palace]. Some windows in the canvas also allows the visitor to have a direct look at the ancient structures.
This technique, economically sustainable, and very easy to be repaired also involving local materials and local workers of Mozan, turned to be very effective and practicable, since it has been lasting for many years.
In the end, an auspice is expressed, in the shape of a question: “Quale maggiore profitto potrebbe aspettarsi l’archeologo da una integrazione radicale nello scavo del conservatore e del restauratore?” [“What wider profit could an archaeologist gain from a radical integration on the field of both the conservator and the restorer?” translation by mDP] (p. 48).
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