Stručni rad
Conservation and restoration of a prehistoric burial textile from a tumulus in Pustopolje Kupreško
Gordana Car
; Hrvatski restauratorski zavod, Odjel za tekstil, papir i kožu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
A blanket for the deceased from a Bronze Age burial at the site of Pustopolje in Kupreško Polje is the oldest and the largest find of woollen textile in Europe. Regardless of the fact that it now consists of five hundred ninety-six fragments, the preserved edges made it possible to reconstruct the size, the appearance and the way this prehistoric textile had been made. Conservation and restoration treatments carried out at the Croatian Conservation Institute in Zagreb were aimed at improving the condition of the artefact and removing the consolidant that was used in a 1980s intervention. Special attention was given to preparing a construction for the presentation of fragments of this impressive piece of Bronze Age weaving art, which is nowadays exhibited at the Franciscan Museum and Gallery Gorica in Livno.
The finding of a woollen funerary textile dates back to 1983 when, as part of a comprehensive archaeological excavation of prehistoric tumuli at the site of Pustopolje Kupreško, surveys began of the large tumulus no. 16. Results of the surveys along with an analysis of the finds were published by Alojz Benac in 1986. Material artefacts found at the earth tumulus comprised a wooden coffin – sledge with a lid and cross wedges, fine thin leather that had been placed over the coffin floor, the remains of the deceased and a woollen blanket in which the deceased was wrapped. The prehistoric textiles have survived to this day due to the extreme microclimate conditions in which they were kept. A similar situation applies to the funerary textile from the tumulus no. 16. The wooden coffin within the earth tumulus and all its contents, including the deceased’s remains, the leather onto which he was laid and a large-sized blanket into which he was wrapped were entirely filled with fresh water without the presence of oxygen. A sudden and drastic change from the anaerobe to the aerobe environment caused the textile in which the deceased was wrapped to quickly decompose into many various-sized fragments. Once they were excavated, the textile finds were treated and analyzed alongside other archaeological finds at the National Museum in Sarajevo.
This primary treatment included a consolidation of the fragmented parts of the original textile and their random placement between two separate large-sized double glass panels. Cooperation between the Department of Textiles of the Croatian Conservation Institute and the Franciscan Museum and Gallery Gorica in Livno was launched in 2007. In order to precisely detect and remove the previously used consolidant, it proved necessary to include similar institutions into the very process of consolidating the item. At the same time, a fairly limited amount of time and finances reduced the scope of conservation and restoration procedures to just those that were necessary. The crucial phase in the process were the investigative works and trials performed on selected fragments. A follow up to the conservation treatments depended on a successful and coordinated inter-institutional cooperation of the Croatian Conservation Institute and the Faculty of Textile Technology in Zagreb. It would not have been possible to carry out the phases of detecting and removing the existing consolidant without Edita Vujasinović and Marina Martek from the Department of Materials, Fibres and Textile Testing of the Faculty of Textile Technology. After the phase of removing the consolidant was successfully performed, a phase of relaxing the fragments ensued, aimed at smoothing out the structure of the weave while applying a new consolidant. In determining and establishing the technology of making the fabric, which made it possible to determine the actual dimensions of the fabric, the crucial role was that of Stana Kovačević from the Department of Projecting and Management of Textiles of the Faculty of Textile Technology. The process of reconstructing the fabric largely resembled assembling a huge-sized puzzle, aggravated by the absence of motif from most of the fabric, in addition to the lack of information as to the percentage of the fabric that had been lost.
The starting points in reconstructing the fabric were the visually recognizable elements of the selvedges. The main goal of the presentation and the bearing construction was to ensure a more secure and visually readable way to present the presumed original form of the blanket, while at the same time use an appropriate way to support and incorporate the damaged fragments. Upon completing the treatments and returning the woollen blanket to Livno, an important contribution to understanding and interpreting the technology and history of this object in the context of prehistoric archaeological textile was provided by Lise Bender Jørgensen and Karina Grömer, who initiated a series of new relevant analyses.
Ključne riječi
Middle Bronze Age; funerary textile; woollen blanket; Pustopolje Kupreško; tumulus no. 16; conservation and restoration works
Hrčak ID:
106454
URI
Datum izdavanja:
20.12.2012.
Posjeta: 1.231 *