20th January 2006, 10:38 PM
Knew a county archy whom upon finding unique set of statues - with residue - took them back home and scrubbed them over kitchen sink... Many volunteers i know would take a lot more care - they usually ask advice....
Quote:quote:Originally posted by sniper
yes, long live the volunteer, but only if they know what they are doing. washing finds may seem superficially easy, but if you don't know anything about the stuff you are washing before you dunk it in the water and scrub the life out of it...am constantly having to comment in burial catalogues that an individual may have had periosteal bone reactions but they have been scrubbed off during washing. same theory for that nice bit of prehistoric pot that has turned to gritty brown water...
there are a lot of very good, very keen and committed volunteers, but there are also the other kind as well and I often wonder what kinds of information we are losing because of ignorance of the needs of finds processing, things getting scrubbed to death, thrown away with the mud etc etc. Schemes of training would be fantastic, but for a lot of us there is simply not the time if we are going to get our own work done.
++ i spend my days rummaging around in dead people ++