2001 CONSERVATION Karen Stamm, Metropolitan Museum, Conservator Mary Schafer, Conservation Assistant Christopher White, Conservation Assistant Bridget Marx, Cataloguer Reports from the end of the field season Conservation and Cataloguing Report - Week Five: Nah… we don't really bite. If it weren't for the hoodlums, Bridget's return most definitely would have been the highlight of the week. On Monday she managed to put in three hours of work, even after flying in from Washington, D.C. and taking six hours worth of train rides across Italy. At dinner she proceeded to fall head first into her pasta, sound asleep. It was not necessarily her presence once again in the lab that made her return so special; no instead it was the bag of goodies that she lugged across land, air and water. Aside from many peanut butter products her bootie included baggies (thank you Jenny and Carrie for your help hunting these down!) and the much-anticipated walkie-talkies. Chris White using a microscope to clean and restore a small find. Mary Schafer joins sherds (foreground) while Karen Stamm conserves a find. Mary, Chris, and Karen who were hard at work all last week have provided Bridget with plenty of objects to catalogue this week. More importantly, the plethora of objects from Justin's trench of last year (PC 20) have allowed Bridget to conquer her fear of writing the catalogue numbers onto the actual objects. Left:The Return of Bridget - Displacement of Widget. Right: Bridget Inscribes an Object from Last Year… fearlessly! With all of this professionalism in the lab, we decided that we had to dress the part. If you recall, several weeks ago we visited the main conservation lab in Florence (Gabinetto del Restauro) and were quite impressed by their couture. Wishing to emulate this fashion sense in Vicchio, the girls pulled out dresses, heels and makeup, while managing to continue normal operations, which includes keeping an eye on the dumpsters outside of our lab for any good "freebies." Boldly, we dove into the dumpsters to pilfer discarded boxes and trays that are essential to our site, regardless of heels. Karen keeps an eye out for hoodlums as Bridget dives into the dumpster. Life in the lab is not all fun and games. This week Chris and Mary have been hard at work on very special iron objects. We call them special because it makes Chris and Mary feel better. The corrosion on iron can be rock hard and quite difficult to remove with the tools that are available to the typical field lab. They have spent the last few days scraping away at the corroded stuff. Mary keeps asking the hill if she can borrow a small archaeological pick and while at first Chris discouraged this drastic initiative, he has since been seen eyeing the trench supervisors' supply bags. Great Results on the Iron, without the use of picks. Due to the attention given to the iron from years past, our ceramic finds have been feeling a bit overlooked. In order to make their life a bit more interesting, we have allowed them to recuperate after joining in a tiny resort, complete with psychedelic metallic palms, lounge chairs, and martinis (with a wisp of acetone). The joins have been setting better in this new joint! The 'sand' at the "Happy Sherds Resort Community" provides support to prop sherds while their joins are setting. The site director, Dr. Greg Warden, has been spending some time in the conservation lab this week. At times he is a bit confused by the extra activity, but generally seems pleased with the operations of the lab. We just love the fact that he comes bearing figs and other such treats, like Keith Doherty, "fresh" from the F.O.D. As a graduate student he is visiting us in the lab to learn several conservation and cataloguing techniques. He finds the trench notebooks more fascinating than his present bedtime reading of Danielle Steele. Keith "The Treat" Doherty (left) with Berta Buurman. Highlight of the week: One afternoon, when Bridget was walking back to the lab from the apartment she was followed by several hoodlums. Apparently on a dare, one of the four in the car entered the lab, and after saluting Chris left. Their blue metallic car and numerous body piercings have not been seen in Vicchio before, or since. In order to deter future such episodes a sign has been hung in the window of the conservation lab. Now we just need to have it translated. "Warning: The Conservators Do Bite!" Trouble-makers (see faces) visit the hill for Week 5 trench tours.   The Good Life: Bridget Marx, Amy Leach, Christopher White, and Karen Stamm relax at sunset before dinner at Vigna. Conservation Web Report - Week Six Real World Vicchio: Six weeks ago, four strangers were thrown into a single apartment in the center of Vicchio, Italy. They had to spend every waking moment for the next month and a half together: working, relaxing, drinking and eating. Contact with the outside world was limited and judging from the objects handed to them daily, it would seem as if they were in fact living in the age of the ancient Etruscans. But, no, instead they were just the three conservators and the lone cataloguer of Poggio Colla. Bridget Marx holds umbrella for Karen Stamm, who gives Mary Schafer and Chris White the annual lesson on excavation and conservation in the field. And so, once again we find ourselves at the very end of the season, looking back and reminiscing over the past few weeks. Thankfully, in hindsight these weeks look good. In June the conservators began working on the backlog of items from the 2000 season and were able to make some great discoveries here in the lab. Including a plethora of beautifully decorated bucchero fragments. Bridget Marx escapes the lab to excavate in Trench PF 6. Once the 2001 season was in full swing we had many exciting moments in the lab, watching fragments become vessels and the unearthing of even more incised pottery from beneath the dirt of this year. This past week has been quite hectic, as the trenches have reached their major occupation zones and are sending us over 20 objects a day (per trench!). Many of the frailer objects are sent in small boxes, tied with string and each morning is similar to Christmas as we unwrap each find. Even with the superfluity of objects the conservators have been able to keep up with all of the new finds while still being able to conduct their annual conservation workshop on Tuesday evening. Mary Schafer watches Kelly Hayes reconstruct a flowerpot from sherds in the archaeological conservation workshop. This workshop consisted of a brief lecture and explanation of the tools and materials used within the conservation lab. Then the tables were turned as students were handed several modern ceramic sherds and asked to reconstruct a flowerpot. Despite suggestions to place the sherds in an acid bath in order to recreate the soil conditions at Poggio Colla, we decided to go easy on the students and instead smashed the flowerpots with a large metal rod. Much fun was had by all. Chris White crowned (?) by a flowerpot reconstructed by Rachel Julis and Mónica Jiménez during the archaeological conservation workshop. On Wednesday the conservators were called to PC 18 in order to excavate a coarseware vessel from the trench. Due to the rain and the fragile nature of the object, the trench supervisor thought it best to turn to the conservation team. While they have been training for such a moment and watching the skies for the illuminated "Silver Trowel" Conservation Signal, disappointingly a cell phone call was used instead, since the sun was still up. The Bat-mobile was also unavailable that morning, so the Texas Jeep was called into action. Above and below: Karen Stamm excavates a coarseware vessel fragment in Trench PC 18 as part of the training for assistant conservation staff. Thursday and Friday of next week have been designated as "Days of Order" by Bridget, the cataloguer. The frenzy of uber-organization was encouraged by both the nearing of the season's end and the arrival of over 100 plastic storage boxes. Dr. Greg Warden was kind enough to drive to Parma and pick up the boxes, filling one of the vans to its entirety. This should discourage dumpster diving for the remainder of the season. As this is our last communication, we wipe away tears of sadness and get back to work. Week Seven - Final Report: "Ohhh, I get it, dirt REMOVAL!" We thought that last week was our last communication but we are back by popular demand. Thank you to all of our fans in Japan for writing in and asking for more. It is all about ratings these days, don't you know. Conservator Karen Stamm works on a nearly complete black glaze vessel found in Trench PC 22. Well, things are entirely madness in downtown Vicchio. Today, Wednesday, was deemed as our last day to process objects. Plus we are moving out of the Magazzino tomorrow. So we must pack up and move everything out. Finds are going back into the lovely basement of the Beato Angelico Museum and supplies to our year-round storage house of Guardia. So we are presently running around like Santa's Elves on Christmas Eve. Or maybe more accurately like chickens with our heads cut off. All of this activity did not stop us from having a plethora of visitors today. But we think we can close the guest book finally. Cataloguer Bridget Marx has done a brilliant job organizing photos and object data in our catalogue this year. So as you can imagine the rest of this week has also been a little crazy. Conservation was moving at top speed. Bridget aided with prioritization for finds. Not everything could of course be worked on. So, we are writing a formal apology right now to next year's crew for all of the rather unglamorous finds that we are leaving you. We will not leave our addresses or numbers for fear that you may want to hunt us down and kill us. Chris White joins pieces of the incised bucchero oinochoe found in Trench PC 18 at the end of the 2000 season. Much of the work that we did do was quite satisfying. Chris worked on last year's incised bucchero oinochoe and finally got together most of what could be gotten together. And Mary put together some very nice bucchero chalice pieces that came out of Trench PC 18 this year. Karen longingly looked over at their projects as she worked on some fragile and not all too attractive coarse ware that she helped to lift out of Kate Topper's trench the previous week. Left: Mary Schafer joins fragements of a horned kyathos from PC 23. Right: Mary Schafer joins pieces of a bucchero chalice found in PC 20. But the bulk of the work was just rudimentary cleaning of all of the large numbers of finds that came out at the end of the season. Cotton swabs were a'flying. Bridget had to keep up with tracking which of these objects had or had not received attention, and aside from the momentary blindness when hit in the eye by cotton, she was able to do so. Mary Schafer and Chris White hard at work in the restauro. To keep us all a bit calmer though, we have had the ever-smiling face of Chiara Gori, our bucchero specialist. She has been here now for a number of weeks and has become a member of our Vicchio team. And when we most needed an energy boost today, in she walked with a big vat of gelato. Bless her! Highlight of the week: Rachel Julis, Mónica Jiménez, and Kelly Hayes, troopers that they are, joined in on the activity in the Magazzino. They worked through all of the tedious but necessary end of the season jobs with smiles. We love them and wanted to keep them but Greg thought it was best that they pack and go eat dinner. We, however, are still working. But with manic smiles. Bridget Marx maintained this pose throughout the evening of the Festa at the Vicchio circolo.   A few notable conservation projects from the 2001 season: Black glaze vessel from Trench PC 22 before conservation. Black glaze vessel from Trench PC 22 after conservation.   Black glaze vessel handle from Trench PF 6.   Bucchero openwork chalice from Trench PC 18.   A restored fineware kyathos from Trench PC 23.   Co-Directors: Gregory Warden gwarden@mail.smu.edu and Michael Thomas mlthomas@mail.utexas.edu Excavation house phone during the field season: (011-39) 055-844-9834