Presenting the Artifacts: Considerations for Archaeological Exhibitions

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Beginning in 2021, a team of stakeholders worked to develop an exhibition to showcase the breadth and wonder of archaeological materials excavated at Colonial Williamsburg. This exhibition, Worlds Collide, is the first installation in the newly established Margaret Moore Hall gallery in the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. Our team worked collaboratively to select, prepare, and mount the materials. Ultimately, we had two goals: ensure the long-term preservation of the artifacts while pursuing a dynamic presentation of material that focused more on creating a broad understanding of life and less on the location or manner of excavation. This paper will focus on how the principles of preventive conservation, particularly light sensitivity, material interactions, and conservation-grade support materials provide guardrails for the safe display of artifacts. It will also highlight the conservation of several artifacts in the exhibition as a way to discuss the contemporary ethics of reconstruction and display. The principles presented can be applied to any archaeological display, regardless of scale or location, and by doing so, can help to minimize the risk to artifacts while maximizing the public benefit of being able to examine archaeological artifacts in contextualized settings.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53214