A Day in the Life of an Artifact, Part 1

[Note to teachers: For those wishing to use this two-part article as the basis for a class lesson, a list of Educational Objectives may be found at the end.]

Part 1: From the find to conservation

A fated voyage

This is the story of an ancient pot called an amphora. An amphora is a large, two handled clay pot used for shipping things like wine. This story begins in 750 BC (almost 3000 years ago) in what is known as the Iron Age. Two--or possibly a fleet of--Phoenician ships set sail from the ancient Mediterranean port of Tyre. The Phoenicians were the leading sailors and traders of their time, and lived in what is now Lebanon from about 1200 BC to 146 BC. We don't know how many ships there were altogether, and we think there may have been six or more crew members on each ship. But we do know that each ship carried about ten tons of wine in 350 to 400 amphoras.

The ships were probably on a routine mission to Egypt, or perhaps Carthage, which is present-day Tunis in northern Africa. Suddenly, a violent storm probably blew out of the east and overtook the ships. The crew prayed fervently to their gods, but to no avail. Two of the ships went down in more than 400 meters (1000 feet) of water off the coast of Ashkelon, Israel. They landed upright and there they stayed--until their discovery 2700 years later by a group of 20th Century explorers.

The discovery

This past June a team of archeologists, oceanographers and other specialists, including Robert Ballard of the Institute for Exploration, who discovered the Titanic, and Lawrence Stager, an archeologist and the director of the Semitic Museum of Harvard in Cambridge, MA., brought up about a dozen or so amphoras from the ancient shipwrecks-the oldest deep-sea shipwrecks ever found--and the first Phoenician ship ever discovered.

Before doing anything else Professor Stager first looked at a video of the shipwreck and the sunken cargo, filmed by the US Navy. Upon first seeing photographs of the shipwreck's cargo, Dr. Stager knew he had something unusual here: "There were dozens of neatly stacked amphoras." Professor Stager had never seen, in all his 35 years of land excavating, anything like it. But he guessed what the artifacts might be because of their shape. The amphoras had a torpedo shape to them, making him think they could be from ancient Phoenicia or Israel. "This also led me to believe they were from a period of 750 to 700 BC--the Iron Age," he says.

How did the archeological team recover the amphoras? The waters are too deep for scuba diving so "Jason"--a deep-diving robot--went down from a mother ship (on which the archeological team waited) and, first, photographed the ancient wrecks and their cargoes. Then with its robot arms, Jason placed the amphoras into the mesh pockets of a large metal frame called an elevator that lifted them to the surface near the mother ship.

It was a wonderful day for the archeology team. The find was featured on all the news channels, and even National Geographic magazine was there to photograph and film the event.

What did the amphoras look like when the recovery team saw them for the first time? Unlike other artifacts dug from the ground, these were actually very clean on the outside and whole. Often artifacts, especially pottery, from the ground are crusted with sand and are broken up into pieces called sherds. "But although clean on the outside, these amphoras were filled with sea mud-40 to 50 pounds each!" says Dennis Piechota, who is a conservator--a professional who checks the condition of the artifacts when they're first recovered and then takes the necessary steps to keep them in good shape so they can be moved around and studied.

They were large: Most of the amphoras were 22 centimeters (cm) around (that's 9 inches in diameter); 70 cm (27 inches) in height, with a volume of 17 to 19 liters (16 quarts). A large bottle of Coke is two liters, so this gives you an idea of how much wine these jugs could hold.

And the color of the amphoras was very fascinating to the archeological team. They were half black and half red. This was not their original color, the archeologists knew. How did it happen? Wherever the amphoras were exposed above the sea floor, a thin layer of black manganese dioxide (a chemical) developed on the pottery. And wherever the pottery was submerged in the mud, the chemical did not form on the surface-and the color was red, which was probably close to the original clay color of the pottery.

When the amphoras came up out of the sea, they were treated like celebrities. And no wonder: This was the first time in almost 3000 years that anyone had laid eyes on them! While they were still dripping wet, explains Dennis Piechota, the archeologists tagged the amphoras with field numbers.

The field number is extremely important. Says associate curator James Armstrong of the Semitic Museum of Harvard: "The field number designates the excavation site and season (year) and also gives the artifact its own private ID number so the archeologists will be able to keep track of it". It's like getting a social security number. Later, the amphoras may receive another number, called a museum accession number, which is different.

After the amphoras received their field numbers, the conservators photographed them while they were still in the elevator platform, and then moved them-very carefully-to a holding tank that contained a 50/50 percent mix of fresh water and sea water. "They had to be kept wet to avoid cracking," says Mr. Piechota. The mud was also removed, which would have eventually harmed the drying pottery, and was put aside for a process called flotation analysis. This is an archeological procedure that sifts the mud and looks for tiny bits of organic (living or once living) material, such as tiny, microscopic bits of dried wine. All these little bits of information give the archeologists a lot of knowledge about the culture who made the amphoras.

After the team removed the mud, each amphora was digitally photographed (for use on a computer) and the conservators completed forms detailing what kind of treatment the amphoras got. Then each artifact was wrapped in a wet cotton fabric to hold a lot of water against the surface of the pottery, again, so it wouldn't dry out too quickly. Then each object was bagged in three layers of poly (plastic) bagging, followed by bubble wrap for cushioning. The amphoras were then boxed in corrugated cardboard. Finally, they were placed in a 20-foot steel shipping container (very large storage box) for their trip across the Atlantic to the lab in Massachusetts.

So what's happening to the amphoras now? The amphoras are at the conservator's lab where there is all the equipment to take care of them. In a way, they're being treated carefully and lovingly like newborns. The conservators have two main goals: They need to remove the sea salt from the amphoras (because salt--even in objects excavated from the ground--causes cracking) and slowly dry them so that they don't break. First, the amphoras are soaked for two to three months in circulating tap water, followed by three weeks of controlled drying time in incubation chambers where the humidity and temperature are kept just high enough to dry them without damaging them.

Then, when the conservator thinks they're ready, the amphoras will take another trip to Harvard University and the Semitic Museum where they will start their careers as museum objects. This is where they will be studied, shown to the public (including school kids) and will "tell" the world about the brave Phoenician sailors who carried them on their ships. But that's a whole other story.

In Part II we will look at what happens when artifacts come to the museum.

Educational Objectives

After reading this article, students should be aware that:

1. Archeology is a science which involves teamwork. Some members of an excavation, especially archeologists and conservators, often end up working with the objects in a museum afterwards.

2. Artifacts require special handling when recovered from an excavation. Most important are: (1) recording, photographing and labeling the objects to keep track of them, and; (2) preservation: making sure that the objects are treated in ways that will keep them so that they won't be harmed. This is usually the work of the conservators.

3. Conservators are like doctors for objects. They examine each object and prescribe a treatment for it. Treatment of objects usually involves: (1) cleaning dirt from them (if they've been buried underground) and removing salts from them (which causes cracking); and (2) maintaining a safe level of humidity and temperature for them as they get used to a new environment. In the case of these amphoras, slow drying is a very important part of the process.

4. Proper recording and preservation are important for analysis and interpretation. Archeologists are very interested in these objects, their contents and where in the ground or the sea they were found because every little bit of information gleaned from these objects tells something valuable about the people and the culture which produced it.

Ilene Springer is an independent archeology writer and a graduate student in museum studies at Harvard University. You can reach her at sennuwy@aol.com. All images are courtesy National Geographic Magazine.