Archaeologists Amelia Chisholm and Jessica Mundt personified the concept of public history and public archaeology today when they turned an area of the exhibit space along the front of the museum into a work space restoring artifacts. Amelia and Jessica were in full view of the public as they spent the afternoon repairing glass objects found during digs at the Maynard Burgess house on Duke of Gloucester.
Most of the items they repaired today were glass bottles and it was fascinating for all passersby to watch. Before starting the repair process, most of the bottles were in several small pieces. While repairing the bottles, references to jigsaw puzzles were flying throughout the room. Imagine putting together one of those 3-D puzzles without having all of the pieces and then try to stand it up. Not a very settling proposition, especially when those pieces have sharp edges and are made of glass.
To repair the bottles, Jessica and Ameila went through the painstaking process of identifying where each of the pieces went. Afterwards they painted glue (which looks like clear finger nail polish to an outside observer like myself) along the edges of two pieces and placed them together.
The seams between the objects were then secured with tape while the glue dried. It was very interesting to watch the green aromatic schnapps bottle go from several individual pieces to a somewhat complete bottle in less than an hour.
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