British Museum Technical Research Bulletin Volume 4

Abstract

• The publication of this fourth volume of the British Museum Technical Research Bulletin coincided with the broadcast of the series A History of the World in 100 Objects, a joint project between the British Museum and BBC Radio 4. Technical examination and analysis were undertaken on many of the objects that featured in the radio series. The results allowed a deeper understanding of the creation, function and subsequent history of these artefacts, which contributed to the development of programme scripts. A particular theme that recurred throughout A History of the World in 100 Objects was the transmission of ideas and materials within and between cultures, through trade, exploration or incursion. Four articles in this volume explore the evidence for such cross-cultural diffusion, ranging from the Greeks trading in the port of Naukratis in sixth century BC Egypt to the convergence of Ethiopian and European iconography and pigments in a mid-nineteenth century Ethiopian painting of the crucifixion. Popular views of conservation and scientific examination often focus on questions of attribution or authenticity, and studies that lead to the exposure of a fake or pastiche make good stories. Two papers in this volume address questions of authenticity: examination clearly shows that swords attributed to the late second and first millennium BC from modern day Iran are not what they purport to be; while analysis of a polychrome Roman marble head from the mid-second century AD (the Treu head) has re-established it as a rare survival of original Classical polychromy. Contents: The image revealed: study and conservation of a mid-nineteenth-century Ethiopian church painting (Heidi Cutts, Lynne Harrison, Catherine Higgitt and Pippa Cruickshank) Coatings and contents: investigations of residues on four fragmentary sixth-century BC vessels from Naukratis (Egypt) (Rebecca Stacey, Caroline Cartwright, Satoko Tanimoto and Alexandra Villing) A gold four-horse model chariot from the Oxus Treasure: a fine illustration of Achaemenid goldwork (Aude Mongiatti, Nigel Meeks and St John Simpson) The 'Treu Head': a case study in Roman sculptural polychromy (Giovanni Verri, Thorsten Opper and Thibaut Deviese) Change and stasis: the technology of Dark Age metalwork from the Carpathian Basin (Paul Craddock, Michael Cowell, Duncan Hook, Michael Hughes, Susan La Niece and Nigel Meeks) Investigating the construction methods of an opus vermiculatum mosaic panel (Melina Smirniou, Giovanni Verri, Paul Roberts, Andrew Meek and Michela Spataro) Assessing the effects of alkaline desalination treatments for archaeological iron using scanning electron microscopy (Melanie Rimmer and Quanyu Wang) Colour holography of the oldest known work of art from Wales (Hans Bjelkhagen and Jill Cook) New light on old swords from Iran (St John Simpson and Susan La Niece)