"Presenting Archaeological Conservation to the public at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation."

Summary

Recently, archaeology has become more popular and better understood within a wider public audience; arguably this has not been the case for archaeological conservation. Images of artifacts at burial sites are often publicized but when objects are miraculously revealed clean and ready for museum display, this completely overlooks a whole series of important and interesting processes that take place to get to this finished object. Having already shown an interest in the discovery of archaeological objects, the next logical step is to reveal to the public the object’s journey from ‘archaeological find’ to ‘museum display piece’.

This paper will discuss the current outreach methods employed at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation that show the public the highly diverse research and techniques used in an archaeological conservation lab. This will briefly be compared to outreach workshops in other institutions and ideas will be presented for future educational activities to further public knowledge of archaeological conservation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Transforming Narratives and Globalizing Access: Curation, Conservation and Social Engagement   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 444