For Future Generations Conservation of a Tudor Maritime Collection

This volume focuses on the conservation program devised for the Mary Rose. It describes the principles and objectives of marine archaeological conservation, explains the work undertaken to conserve the hull and contents of the Mary Rose, and discusses the requirements for the display and storage of treated materials in the Mary Rose museum. The conservation program for the Mary Rose began even before the excavation had commenced, and has continued ever since. More than 26,000 objects were recovered - including wood, textiles, leather, ceramics, glass, stone, metals, rope, pieces of sail-cloth, and many hundreds of animal and human bones - and almost all required some kind of treatment to halt the effects of 450 years of immersion in salty sea-water. This volume explains the conservation methods used for the treatment and preservation of each major category of material. It describes the processes of decay and degradation and the results of bacterial and animal infestation that affect shipwrecks. The variety and immensity of the task facing the excavators of the Mary Rose was so great that new methods and treatments had to be devised and tested. It proved to be ground-breaking work. The conservation work did not stop with the stabilization of the hull and objects from the wreck. Museum display and the continuing storage of most objects presented their own problems. This volume also describes the design and construction of specialized display cases, ensuring that the museum could control and monitor potentially destructive environmental factors such as light, relative humidity, heat and atmospheric pollution, as well as allowing good public access to the objects. The success of this work is plain to see on a visit to the museum and ship hall.Jones, Mark is the author of 'For Future Generations Conservation of a Tudor Maritime Collection' with ISBN 9780954402952 and ISBN 0954402952.