Conservation Observations of the Tin Ingot Assemblage of the Uluburun Shipwreck

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Conservation of Archaeological Materials from Submerged Sites", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Late Bronze Age Uluburun shipwreck sank ca. 1325 BCE and was excavated by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology from 1984 to 1994. It yielded a large assemblage of raw metal, including around 1 ton of pure tin in the form of ingots. Artifacts of pure tin are rare from any context, and especially from an underwater context from this period. As such, the conservation needs of pure tin from maritime contexts are not robustly understood, with some sources stating that artifacts of this type are stable and require little to no conservation beyond desalination. Processes observed in this assemblage demonstrate that the conservation needs of maritime tin artifacts are more complex than previously realized. The conservation of this assemblage is active and ongoing, and this presentation will provide an overview of observed changes in the tin ingot assemblage as well as possible underlying causes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Conservation of Archaeological Materials from Submerged Sites

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow