Conservation of Artifacts - from a Civil War Privy at the Lee" Street Site

The exhibition, "A Community Digs Its Past: Archaeology at the Lee Street Site," highlights the steps of archaeology, including archaeological conservation which was necessary to preserve waterlogged artifacts. If you had visited the Alexandria Archaeology Museum in the summer of 1998, you would have seen conservator Lisa Young, her assistant Christen Runge, and Alexandria Archaeology volunteers treating artifacts which were excavated from a Civil War era U.S. Military Hospital complex in Alexandria, Virginia.

Most of the artifacts in need of conservation came from a privy, or out-house, where the artifacts remained wet throughout 130 years of burial. The wet environment, due to the depth of the privy and its location in the tidal flats of the Potomac River, allowed an extraordinary degree of preservation.

A wonderful assortment of the artifacts are now on display, including leather shoes and fragments of harnesses and haversacks, wooden tools and brushes, and metal bullets, buttons and lamps.

A few Artifacts after Conservation

These 19th century bone and mother-of-pearl buttons, blue glass beads and a beautifully decorated bodkin, a needle used for threading ribbon trim, were among the first objects to be conserved.

Preserving Artifacts for Future Generations

Preservation of the artifacts is an obligation of those excavating any site, and wet sites always have higher conservation needs. Conservation, followed by proper storage, will preserve artifacts for future generations.

In preparation for the conservation project, a conservation survey was conducted in which all of the objects were examined and several hundred of the most significant and unstable objects were selected for treatment.

Artifacts were documented before and during treatment.

The artifacts were carefully cleaned during conservation.

Waterlogged Wood:

Waterlogged wooden artifacts  retain their shape as long as they remain wet. If allowed to dry without conservation, wood will warp, shrink and crack. The conservation team first cleaned the wood, and then soaked it for several months in a liquid wax called Polyethylene Glycol (PEG). The PEG filled the wood cells and helped the object to keep its shape. The artifacts were then stored in a freezer and later freeze-dried, just like coffee or space food.

This barrel was brought to the lab for conservation.

The conservators poured Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) into the containers of wood. The open containers were covered with styrofoam to absorb mold.

Leather:

Leather shoes and straps from the privy were in excellent condition--still flexible and supple--but would have stiffened and cracked if allowed to dry without treatment. Conservation treatment involved removal of water from the leather cells and introduction of an inert wax consolidant which holds the shape of the object.

Artifacts such as this leather shoe were drawn to scale by Alexandria Archaeology volunteers.

Metal Artifacts:

Lead musket balls, brass buttons and buckles, copper coins, a tin cup and other metal objects were heavily corroded after 130 years of burial in the damp earth. They had to be carefully cleaned and stabilized to prevent further deterioration.

This brass kerosene lamp was cleaned with a scalpel and fibreglass brush.