| current conditions |
1999-7-18 |
sb |
The ceramic statuette was brought to the conservation Lab on j705, broken into two halves. The break that occurred at the height of the waist, is probably an old break, as the position in which the statuette was found suggests (see digital photos). There were another two small fragments, one earing and a piece of the necklace, that broke while removing the statuette from the excavation. The other earing and a small portion of the necklace, both on the left hand side, are lost as well as the two arms, broken at shoulder level. The upper part was cleaned by SB, the lower one by BA. A few interesting things came out during the cleaning; the object was relatively easy to clean because the soil was very loose. By removing the soil along the break we found that the statuette was partially hollow: the base wall is round and thin, very regular, and we could see from the beginning that it was hollow, but we did not know how much of the statue was hollow. We found that it continued untill the level of the breast, narrowing towards the head. The technique used was definitely that of coils of clay placed one on top of another. We could see from the inside that the coils have been smoothed very well. The reason why the statuette is hollow- it woul have been much easier to model it solid- is probably to avoid cracks during the firing. The statuette has been cleaned, with brush and scalpel. It came out that the type of clay that was used was rich in calcium carbonate; in fact we found right under the surface many tiny dots of calcite that have weakened considerably the ceramic. Where these were found, the ceramic surface was slightly detached from the body and tended to flake off easily. The fact that the color of the ceramic is so light is in itself an indication of a clay rich in calcium and poor in iron. We also noticed that the clay was very rich in Mica, a mineral that when aged, changes from black to yellow. In this case it appears as bright crystals that tend to look like gold dots. Lots of chaff inclusion were also evident as hollow spaces in the surface. The cleaning of the head revealed a few details that were hidden by soil attached to the statue, like the small mouth and the right eye that seems to be represented by a simple pupil. It also became clear that the necklace and the earrings were originally applied as separate pieces. The surface underneath the necklace is in fact perfectly smooth, seen in the portion of neck where the necklace has been lost. A very interesting thing that was also noticed is that there is a large chunk of a pinkish, soft material on the forehead, right above the nose: this material was noticed at the beginning of the cleaning and it was left because it did not look like regular dirt incrustation. It was seen later that a few traces of the same material were also present in other scattered areas such as the belly, the breast and the long stripe of necklace in the back of the statue near the break. It is possible that this pink soft material was applied on purpose over the whole surface although we do not know the reason. |
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