Sunday, October 30, 2011

Conservation at the Ashmolean Museum, UK

Oxford Mail (Liam Sloan)

With photo.

A small team of conservators at the Ashmolean Museum are finishing their painstaking work to restore and preserve dozens of Ancient Egyptian artefacts in time for the grand opening of the new £5m galleries next month.

The new galleries of Ancient Egypt and Nubia will open to the public on Saturday, November 26, and set to boost visitor numbers to new record levels.

But, behind the scenes and high above the Oxford skyline, the experts have spent months slowly conserving priceless objects inch-by-inch.

Head of conservation Mark Norman said: “In the entire collection there are about 50,000 objects, although a lot of that is archaeological material not suitable for public display.

“Only a very small proportion goes out on display, and the conservation effort has been focussed on the most fragile and vulnerable pieces.”

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