Restoring Copper Age ceramics
Vásárhely-Kopáncs
MúzeumCafé 11.
Restoring Copper Age ceramics – Vásárhely-Kopáncs
The archaeological collection in the Tornyai János Museum in the town of Hódmezővásárhely has more than doubled in the past decade. The extremely large quantity of findings discovered at large surface excavations – the majority being ceramics – seriously challenges both archaeologists and restorers. In addition to settlements of other periods, a part of a Middle Copper Age settlement belonging to the Bodrogkeresztúr culture with a well – rare for that period – has been found. Dishes suitable for hanging, presumably accidentally dropped in while scooping out water, were found in the nearly four-metre-deep, unlined earth well dug in a low-lying area at the edge of the settlement. The items include fragments of eight milk-jug-shaped dishes, a hollow-pedestalled jug and a scooping bowl. In the case of the Kopáncs excavations, restoration had to commence on the site itself. The majority of the water scooping dishes had to be taken out from under the subsoil water level in the Middle Copper Age well. The water had made the structure of the ceramics, burnt at low temperature, crumble easily. Therefore cleaning and conservation had to be done before the items were completely dried. Exploring the Copper Age cemetery, the task was made particularly difficult by the fact that the chalky, alkaline subsoil in the presence of sand and water formed a very hard layer of earth surrounding the weakened ceramic dishes. Thus the extraction of the items had to be performed ‘in situ’. As a result of coordinating excavation and restoration, the majority (40 items in total) of the mostly highly damaged grave dishes have been saved.