I'll jump on the ignorancy band wagon. Just WHERE does one go to get
their blobs x-rayed? I wouldn't think all or many medical places would
do it too willingly (wouldn't have the Time). So...where else is this
available?
Curating a box (12x15x10") cost $700 ea. here in San Diego Co. Ouch
(you can imagine the joy the developer usually has when they get to pay
this fee; so they gladly would like us Not to save Everything).
X-rays seem a better way to go...since, as you state, if not properly
conserved...the corrosion continues, and you end up with a pile of dust
in the bag/box.
For some yrs. there was a ferrous cup included in a display of historic
artifacts at an adobe ranch complex...and I pointed out how the cup
continued to 'shed'...which wasn't too attractive. After some 3 yrs, I
see the cup has now been removed from the display.
>-----Original Message-----
>From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>Behalf Of Sara Rivers
>Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 12:06 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Discarding iron (was: curation of hazardous materials)
>
>X-radiography of metals may seem to be over the top for your
>basic iron blob, but in reality it is a very affordable
>identification technique, and its use could potentially save
>CRM firms money while retaining the information that the iron
>objects have to offer. I recently asked a conservator who
>does x-radiography to compare the price of x-raying a box of
>iron to the one-time box fee in Maryland ($350). The bottom
>line was that it would be cheaper to x-ray and discard that
>box of iron than to pay the box fee (and I know that many
>states are even more expesive, so the cost savings increase
>the higher the state box fee is).
>
> The best part about this is the added advantage of not
>throwing away all of the information that those blobs hold.
>An x-ray of a blob might well reveal only nails, but from that
>image, you can usually tell if it's a wire, wrought, or cut
>nail and you can take measurements. If you curate the
>materials without conservation, they'll deteriorate and the
>information will be lost. If you automatically discard them,
>obviously the information is lost. X-radiography should be
>seen as an affordable form of mitigation for that information
>loss, and the x-rays themselves another part of the
>photodocumentation of a site. If we as archaeologists are
>open to such techniques, we may find that these studies are
>not as over-the-top as we thought.
>
> If anyone is interested in the x-radiography
>cost-effectiveness study that I mentioned, Howard Wellman
>presented it at the Middle-Atlantic archaeology conference
>this year, and if you contact me off-list I can ask him to
>share it with you.
>
>
> Sara Rivers Cofield
> Curator of Federal Collections
> Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory
|