O'Grady, C; (2022) Mending, sticking and repairing: Reconstructing Conservation Expertise in Archaeology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. In: Dupré, S and Boulboullé, J, (eds.) Histories of Conservation and Art History in Modern Europe. Routledge: London, UK.

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Abstract

Archaeology emerged as a scientific discipline with codified expertise and standardised methods in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Artefacts retained significantly more interpretive value as evidence of the past when archaeologists recorded details about their provenience and relative age. Preservation of recovered artefacts and sites was necessary to establish scientific theories of the past. Terms and their meanings are mutable, evolving as experts in conflict aim to identify distinct identities with their own knowledge, skills, and expertise. Analysis of language also conveys a hierarchy of actors and reveals bias—reflecting the professionalisation of archaeology within a colonial context. Many archaeologists discuss strategies for mending, sticking, and repairing artefacts. William Frederic Bade, an American archaeologist who excavated in Palestine, including in Tell en-Nasbeh, specifically discusses the long-term process of the training of workmen initiated when they were young boys.

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