Conservation
A Door Sealing
VC36

By the twelfth season of excavation at Tell Mozan, our Conservation Lab was an indispensable part of our "digging" protocol. Insofar as it was possible, fragments of shattered tablets and sealings, baked and unbaked, were routinely delivered to Beatrice Agnelli and Sofia Bonetti, our conservators. They brought a wealth of knowledge to the task, having helped pioneer and practice preservation techniques at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Firenze (Florence), Italy's prestigious museum conservatory. The laboratories trace their beginnings to the shaping and carving of precious stones in jewelry manufacture under the Medicis. Once an arm of the Uffizi Galleries, the Opificio has broadened its mandate in recent times to include restoration - obviously of great import to the excavation of objects at Tell Mozan.

In this sequence, Sofia Bonetti (see her book in the Bibliography), allows us to look in on the meticulous, time-consuming, frustrating and grueling (let it be said) process of reconstruction of images impressed in dried mud. In this case, her efforts begin to reveal the image of a nude man and a prancing equid.

This sequence adds depth to the observation that archaeological meaning is constructed not solely in a past time, but in the present.

Piece by piece.

A stunning example of successful reconstruction is exemplified by the sealing of Ishar-Beli, found in no less than fourteen fragments! (see Hauser 2007, 52-53; Zarins (Hauser) 2014, 139-140, Fig. 2.71).