 The Archeological Research Facility is located in Wichin, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Chochenyo-speaking Alone people, successors of the historic and sovereign Verona band of Alameda County. We acknowledge that this land remains of great importance to the Alone people and that the ARF community inherits a history of archeological scholarship that has disturbed Alone ancestors and made attempts to erase living Alone people from the present and future of this land. It is therefore our collective responsibility to critically transform our archeological inheritance and practice in support of Alone sovereignty and to hold the University of California accountable to the needs of all native and indigenous peoples. And today, we are really excited to have the conservator, Dr. Caitlin O'Grady speaking to us. And she has a long history of work in conservation. Her talk will be, and we'll see it on the title page, I'm sure, legitimizing the past conservation expertise and the power of transformation. That sounds wonderful and rich. But first, I wanna say something about her. Dr. Caitlin O'Grady actually is a trained conservator and conservation scientist. She is currently a lecturer in conservation and affiliate tutor at the University College London's Institute of Archeology. She manages the FTIR and Rahman instrumentation in the Institute's Wolfson Archeological Science Laboratories, which I believe are still in the basement, right? She received her BA in art history from Case Western Reserve University and MA in art history, an advanced certificate in objects conservation from New York University and an MS and PhD in material science and engineering from the University of Arizona. So definitely well-trained. Dr. O'Grady has extensive experience working as a conservator and conservation scientist on archeological projects throughout the globe, including Albania, Belize, Guatemala, Peru, and Turkey. Her research interests include disciplinary histories of conservation, conservation science, and their intersection with archeology, which we're grateful for, as well as the preservation and scientific analysis of ceramics, historic conservation materials, lime plaster wall paintings, and mud brick. So many things that we're interested in. She has published extensively on the history of conservation, as well, of course, many works on research-related analysis and results on pottery and ceramics, paintings, wall paintings, and mud brick. So we're really excited to learn about her projects and her expertise. So again, thank you very much, Dr. O'Grady, for talking about legitimizing the past, conservation expertise and the power of transformation. So we welcome you and I'm gonna mute and you are going to share your screen. Great, thank you so much, Christine. I'm gonna share my screen right now. I have everyone. Just a moment. Can you see it now? Everybody can see it if I can get someone to confirm. Yes, we can see your screen. Excellent, thank you. Okay, again, I wanted to say many thanks to Sarah, Christine and Niko for the opportunity, as well as the Berkeley Archaeological Research Facility to, for the opportunity to speak and share my research. As I'm very sorry I couldn't meet everyone in person and I hope that the ongoing strike reaches a fair and equitable resolution and that all voices are heard. I'm currently on my sabbatical and working in the archives of the Badae Museum of biblical archaeology, which is part of the Pacific School of Religion to your neighbor. And one thing that for me is that as someone who has trained in the intersection of a number of different disciplines, I'm interested in how those disciplines developed in particular conservation, as well as its impact on the way we view cultural heritage, we construct knowledge about the past and we collaborate as professionals and experts. And the one thing I would like to say is the weather is much better here in the Bay Area than in London right now. But without any further ado, I'm gonna get to the topic. So this talk is going to examine the historical of conservation, the conservation discipline in legitimizing narratives of the past and the impact that this continues to have on the field, its practice and the future. So at the core, their core heritage and its associating meanings are social constructions that are in constant renegotiation by a variety of different actors. These are also dictated by hierarchies of creation and action. And at the forefront of these processes are questions regarding identity, value and power dynamics. It's really important to think about this type of relationships because they become a critical lens for analysis of interpreting the legacies of the past on current and future conservation practice. So whether used to construct and substantiate understandings of history and identity and nationhood, the practice of conservation requires more than neutrality and scientific impartiality. So to do this, as I mentioned before, we need to unpack the roles played by expertise and authority in defining and valuing heritage work. The labor engaged in its production and the development of training and pedagogy. So building on the emergence of archaeology as a scientific discipline, actors and preservation the sought to codify expertise and standardized techniques through the production of field manuals and handbooks. This also served to legitimize their work and substantiate their role as experts. As British archaeologist Sir William Matthew Flinders-Petry reminds his colleagues and audiences, field conservation was time consuming. No one could support those who have not tried it when an immense amount of time and care is needed to preserve things. To some degree, Petrie's quote reads as defensive and essentially he's justifying the use of the resource of time, which on the one hand effectively slowed the pace of excavation, but on the other hand, when you invest time and preservation, the potential to a risk of loss of information is diminished. Now another thing that's important, what's missing from this statement is the acknowledgement that archaeology and preservation required the participation of multiple actors, including numerous named and unnamed individuals. And part of this talk is to sort of again to acknowledge their contributions. On the screen, you can see a number of these critical actors who engaged in the process of ensuring that archeological remains could be read as evidence to form narratives of the past. On the upper left hand side, we can see local work people reconstructing ceramic storage jars or zeros at Telen Nassbaum in the El Milufia laboratory, the expedition's central space where the local members of the project worked and lived. We also see on the lower left, fairly Western conservation practitioners, including Ioni Gediye, who I'll speak more about later, and Delia Parker, who are working on site in the 1930s and wearing very snazzy outfits. And last but not least, I include a cat, because I think it's important to think about individuals and how we change over time in our practices. This image was taken by Olive Starkey, who was a sister of archaeologist, James L. Starkey, who excavated Telen Dweer. As part of her practice, she frequently took pictures of kittens in the pots that she reconstructed when she was working for a brother in the UK. So understanding these individuals and how they engaged in the construction and demarcation of knowledge, which allowed one to distinguish between experts and non-experts, this is a process that sociologist Thomas F. Geerin describes as boundary work. And it forms an important interpretive framework for my research. I think his work has great utility, particularly when we're thinking about investigating the social construction of knowledge. Come on. So as we all know, archeological fieldwork has always been a collective effort. One which requires recognition of an explicit trust in laborers. There are keen observations and hand skills in recovering finds. And this was recently addressed in publication by Allison Mickel and Nyla Byrd. Now, the period in which scientific archeology developed is characterized by an alliance with colonial expansion and associated political frameworks. And as Billy Millman notes, these regulated the study of the ancient past, the circulation of knowledge about it and the exposure and preservation of its physical remains. This structure from managing heritage, effectively bureaucratized preservation and instituted hierarchies of value based on expertise and identity that belie racially motivated concerns about labor moral character. In practice, this is illustrated by the image on the screen, which dates to 1926, 27, and includes Tel Elamirna laborers preserving wall paintings fragments in Egypt under the watchful eye of excavation director, John Penelbury, who we can see in the background. So expertise and authority directed this process by which artifacts were transformed into evidence and used to construct and support narratives about the past. And these practices are integral parts of boundary work surrounding conservation, but I'm gonna talk briefly about thinking about how we conceive of expertise and authority. And on the screen here, you can see Sir Leonard Willey, a British archeologist excavating a votive figure from war in Iraq. So the process by which archeological knowledge and data was stabilized, documented and interpreted reveals tensions between acknowledged experts and the presence of skilled yet invisible technicians or laborers. In this environment, the transmission of preservation expertise was tightly controlled by a hierarchy of actors valuing scientific knowledge that marginalized the other as well as the individuals engaged in that practice. British archeologists, Howard Carter and Arthur Mace described this preservation hierarchy in their publications following the discovery in Tutankhamun's tomb. In their view, conservation of fragile and important finds required the work of a chemist. And here we can see British chemist Alfred Lucas working in the field in Egypt of a man experienced in the handling of antiquities. And again, here's another image of Leonard Willey, transporting a fragile and recently excavated liar also from war. And finally, of an archeologist and on the screen we can see British archeologist Dame Kathleen Kenyon who is sorting excavated shirts at Jericho. Now, in some cases, one individual could play all three of these roles. But what Carter and Mace's statement also highlights is that there were distinct efforts to bound disciplinary primacy over the knowledge, skill and judgment and preservation that was necessary to prevent information loss during excavation. Skilled and unskilled labor was essential to safely recover and transform artifacts into evidence. And there are a number of Egyptian men who are identified in the archives but whose names are unfortunately rarely published. They have the honorific of race or foreman and they were engaged to work specifically for their leadership and management skills as well as manual dexterity. These men were highly trained, highly regarded and valued by archeologists all over the Middle East. And in fact, there was a lot of negotiation of which of these race would be working at various different projects over the years. Numerous foreign projects covered the costs of their international travel, negotiated passports for them. And if necessary, also paid them higher wages. And we can see here on the upper left-hand side documents from Tala and Nazba that a site excavated by Frijik Bade highlighting that the raised barbarie and Mahmood Quraim received substantially higher wages than some of their colleagues. Now, while they were paid elevated salaries for their participation in field conservation, the superior rates did not approximate some others who were valued more highly for their skills. And that was here we can see. And they, those individuals including Levee Bessariel and William Gadd received additional living expenses. Now, raised barbarie who had worked previously at Megiddo acted as the head foreman at Tala and Nazba in the 1929 field season while Quraim was a specialist in pottery restoration on site. And again, a testing to their value and respect within the archeological world both left the project before the 1932 season to honor prior commitments to work for Clarence Fisher's project in Antioch. Now, we can also see on the screen documents that demonstrate the sort of process of supporting these skilled laborers in the field. In the middle, you can see a document requesting for travel costs for several workmen coming to work at Megiddo. The request for the British mandate government of Palestine. And on the far right-hand side, we can see an example of an immigration document that was issued by the mandate government likely for Mahmood Khalil Mohamed who also worked at Tala and Nazba. These rays aided in excavation. They stabilized vines and reconstructed pottery as we can see on the screen. And then this includes Ali the potmender who worked at Megiddo. And his last name unfortunately is not recorded. Ali was hired and trained by Clarence, director Clarence S. Fisher and other American archeologists specifically for his skills in reconstruction. George Reisner also notes his reliance on Egyptian workmen in fitting and mending the vessels under the supervision of staff and his projects across Egypt and Palestine. And recent research decolonizing and unsilencing the Tala and Nazba archives at the Bade Museum of biblical archeology reveals the critical contributions of Reis Barber and Reis Mahmood Khalil Mohamed as well as other specialists including Reis Mahmood Abdel Azim Tantawi who we can see on the far right with another Egyptian colleague with a reconstructed zero vessel. Now, despite acknowledgement of their valuable and vital contributions to archeological research, the names of these Reis are largely hidden from public view and they're not even included in published expedition staff lists. And we can see a colonial bias that's quite clear in these statements and actions as well. These quotes distinguish between expert judgment and the value placed on skilled labor involved in preservation activities. So judgment was more valuable than the skills that could be disseminated through supervised training. There's also ample evidence that children engaged in field preservation including Yusuf who was photographed in the 1920s using paraffin to consolidate skeletal material for one of Petrie's projects. Unfortunately, I don't have that image to show you but there are a series of an image of a series of Fela heen boys who were working at Tala Nasbah in 1932 on the left. Many Middle Eastern American and European women also participated in conservation through the processing and mending of fines as local laborers or as relatives of archeologists. And we can see an image of female digmenders, members cleaning mosaic at Verilamium from 1933 on the right and unfortunately you don't really have time to discuss either of these in detail here but what I can tell you is that regardless of identity and origin these men, women and children who were working in preservation worked within hierarchical strictures that were heavily managed and designed to separate experts from other participants by diminishing their identities as integral contributors. Their role as epistemic image agents in the production of archeological knowledge is effectively marginalized and discredited as quoted by Allison Mickel. Laborers also participated in critical preventive conservation efforts and Reisner like many archeologists developed packing memoranda to prevent damage of exported fines. And you can see in this clip, film clip, we can see workers engaged in packing a coffin for the Metropolitan Museum of Arts Excavations at DRL Bahri in Egypt in the 1920s. Currently they're wrapping cotton fabric around the coffin and securing it by sewing it in place. And this is one of many large fines that was packed for travel to Cairo and beyond. Collective skilled and dexterous labor was integral towards safe transport of fines to countries where archeologists felt that they could be properly preserved, studied and appreciated. A colonial act that effectively separated cultural patrimony from their country of origin. Oh, sorry. Whilst respect for their skills and the products of their labor, local work people were expected to preserve enormous quantities of archeological remains with limited resources and time under very harsh conditions. Effectively, they were asked to perform miraculous miracles to minimize the risk of information loss and further archeological research. So the identification and demarcation of specific knowledge, skills and expertise is communicated by a variety of actors which who exist at these boundary interfaces between disciplines. And this is a process by which we see knowledge production facilitated. This process also means that these individuals are constructing distinct disciplinary identities as well as hierarchies. And we can trace these boundary work activities in private, public and academic spheres. And here on the screen, you can see Palestinian photographer, Adil Sabah who is photographing a recently recovered mosaic along with members of the project's mosaic crew who responsible for its conservation at the site of Antioch on the Arontes in Turkey. Experts engaged in boundary work to solidify their identity as an expert and facilitate knowledge production. And as part of this process, they also create boundary objects which are all of the quotes, publications, films, et cetera, images. And these all help to communicate bounded spheres of knowledge. And in this case on the screen, we can see Leonard Woolley expressing his ethical commitment to conservation whilst also substantiating his specialized expertise in knowledge and preservation. In this case, writing about the treatment of the queen's lyre recovered from orb, he states, I am repairing and putting them into condition without regard to their ultimate destination. Of course, the labor employed means a certain expense to the British Museum. But the important thing from my point of view is what in some cases can only be done by me or under my supervision for the repair and preservation of the things I dug up. Woolley's words also conveys his thoughts about the labor needed to perform these actions. It was valuable and valued, yet subservient to his own intellectual judgment. Archeologists often ask their colleagues for advice and academic exchanges that further solidified each actor's identity as experts within their disciplines. And this was typical practice when running into unexpected challenges during excavations. And certainly we all engage in this practice currently. And it's illustrated by a letter, an exchange between E.W. Gifford, who was then curator at the Berkeley Museum of Anthropology to Chester McCown, director of the Palestine Institute. And this was regarding the stabilization of a gilt iron figure recovered from Tela's Nazba. Gifford recommends Dr. Colin G. Fink, a recognized scientific expert with impactful credentials who worked at the both Columbia University and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And subsequent correspondence between McCown and Fink outlines the process by which the experts engage with each other to facilitate research aims and ensure that the figure would be both preserved as well as interpreted. Kathleen Kenyon also describes collegial consultation during excavations in Jericho, following in the recovery of one of the best preserved but very fragile assemblage of gravegoats in the middle Bronze Age and the Levant that was typified by a lot of organic materials, wood and reed, et cetera, as well as foodstuffs. And she was unsatisfied with modern polymeric consultants that had been trialed for use in preserving these fragile finds and sought alternative options. Ultimately selecting paraffin wax at the recommendation of her colleague Gerald Harding. Now, in both cases, collegial expertise and judgment was very highly valued, so highly valued that they could often outweigh any other considerations including the possible failure of the recommended interventions. And in this case, I specifically refer to the use of paraffin wax. And in research in the last 15 years at the British Museum has definitely demonstrated the fact that which most, almost all conservators would recognize as that paraffin wax is a terrible material to use with a lot of organics. It rarely penetrates into the substrate providing strength and also because it will attract a lot of dust and dirt can make it quite challenging to interpret any kind of object that's been treated with wax. Popular and academic publications also contributed to the boundary work process whilst at the same time perpetuating intellectual value and hierarchy at the direction of experts. And on the left, we can see a quote from the Illustrated London Nudes which describes the careful effort, skill and laborious work required to preserve the empty gut relief which you can see on the screen following excavation from Tel Aviv in Iraq. And this is further substantiated by writing some HRH Hall who was a curator and excavator of the relief who boldly states his role in managing and overseeing the work of restores essentially codifying the value of his judgment over that of other actors. And you can see what the current appearance of the empty gut relief in the British Museum on the lower right-hand side. Scientists also engaged in boundary work as they deliberately separated their knowledge from that of archeologists. And here we can see a quote from Khan Bahadur, Mohammed Sana'ula, an archeological chemist of the Archeological Survey of India who is publishing an article on which he extends the purview of scientists into the chemical knowledge and treatment of recovered finds as well as the knowledgeable use of chemicals to achieve those goals. And he essentially states that expert treatment can only be conducted by the archeological chemist. His statement bounds preservation as part of scientific inquiry and just makes it very distinct from that of archeological work. And these types of discussions and communications reveal tensions between experts, which are not uncommon. And this is because early boundary work activities maximized and communicated authority with clear ramifications for the public. Now this type of activity has clear ramifications for contemporary relationships between scientists, archeologists, and conservators in the field. And I'll revisit that at the end of the talk. Just a moment. Whilst native labor critically contributed to field work, it's also important to realize that there's a distinct contradiction in the relationships between authoritative experts and the local workforce. And this is highly dictated by both colonial and mandate structures which defined work in labor as well as the field art hierarchies in which they operated. And here on the screen, you can see Howard Carter working with Arthur Callender and Egyptian workmen, including a small child as they remove a wall from Tutankhamun's tomb in 1932. Adities towards local and native workforces were predicated on racially, culturally, and socially motivated views. And these are not unique to archeologists working in colonial or mandate spaces. Petrie writes in 1904 that the best age for diggers is about 15 to 20 years. After that, many turn stupid and only a small portion are worth having between 20 and 40. Many archeologists readily adapted these labor structures that reflect these views. And an example can be seen here in the 1912, 1913 footage of local laborers working at Jebel Noya in Sudan. Diggers and members of the gang are managed by British team members in pith helmets, strongly evocative symbol of colonial control. Oh, sorry. Okay, there we go. Now for laborers who valued their skill and expected fair compensation, punishment in their archeological spaces was swift for upending the colonial system. And in 1927, PLO Guy, then director of Megiddo fired a group of workmen who requested salary increases for what he considered breaking the faith with their employers. Subsequently, they were punished and returned to Egypt for their temerity and asking for equitable remuneration for their critical work. This is also an issue that conservators continue to face in terms of budgets that allow for a living wage to pay them while they're working in archeological projects. Newspapers and exhibitions perpetuated and broadcasted this colonial bias and hierarchy whilst also obfuscating the skill and knowledge of native workforces, publicly contributing to the process of boundary work. And these images and the accompanying captions, laborers are either described as requiring supervision on the left or not being morally trustworthy to handle artifacts that were archeologically and monetarily valuable on the right. And as I've noted previously, this process of boundary work and devaluing of labor discredits native labor within existing hierarchical structures. And it's extraordinarily problematic and something that we need to really reconsider. The development and training and pedagogical approaches to support this increasingly necessary and large conservation workforce, regardless of their origin, also shed light on how experts distinguish themselves, between themselves and from other non-experts. And when examining disciplines during a period of formation, we should really view training and the role of participants as a community of practice, in this case centered around and supported by the archeological project. As Laurent Desart notes, excavations are made up of actions whose significance is being mediated within a group and what archeologists or in this case, conservation actors do, in other words, only makes sense when shared with others. And so it's in this context that the conservation workforce participated, each after coming to the project with existing skill sets that aid preservation in which are capitalized on by experts. And this is definitely clear from the use of a mobile Egyptian workforce on archeological projects throughout the Middle East. And this could be focused on engineering experience that facilitated safe removal of fines, such as this rail system, which was used at Deir al-Bahi, which you can see on the left to remove large-scale stone sculpture. And it could also be related to the use of artistic skill, which supported object interpretation, publication and exhibition, as we can see on the image on the right-hand side of the Delia Parker and Ioni Getty working in the Institute of Archeology Repair Laboratory. Acknowledged experts, such as archeologists and scientists, in this case, mediate expertise and judgment beyond their own disciplinary spheres, effectively negating the authority of others. This mediated training occurs in museums and universities as well, not just the archaeological excavation. Museums and their preservation remit functioned as political tools for foreign powers who position themselves as protectors and explicators of the archeological past, a fact highlighted by Sarah Irving when talking about the British Mandate Government of Palestine. And control over the presentation and interpretation of the past was really predicated on the use of a varied and skilled local workforce. Mubarak's side, a formatory or a castmaker, was hired by the Palestinian Archeological Museum in 1930, specifically for his skills as an artist, and said, who we can see on the left-hand side, was responsible for the conservation of recently excavated finds, the displayed in the museum, and you can see him actually working on in-painting of an incense ceramic on the screen. And these finds were then used to support hegemonistic narratives about the past. Now, there are also other individuals involved, including, and I apologize if I mispronounce his name, but Haratun Hamil Halablian, an Armenian who had chemistry training who also worked at the museum in the 1930s. And while we don't know that much about him, Halablian conducted analysis on metallic artifacts as well as cleaning of the finds, including a silver lump from a Gita, which can be seen in the laboratory report that is reproduced on the right-hand side of the screen. Now, neither Said nor Halablian had held positions of power, but the museum's growing collections needed their support and expertise and hand skills, as did their British superiors. For each individual, training in the museum environment required them to adapt their already existing skills, whether they be artistic or scientific, towards conservation stabilization to achieve, sorry, apologies, to achieve information about the archeological aims and effectively restricted and check their autonomy within the mandate museum structure. This bounded role mediated by experts is also visible in the initial conservation training developed and offered at the Institute of Archeology in London before the field became a recognized university discipline. And Ioni Gediay, who you can see on the left-hand side, taught conservation at the Institute between 1937 and 1975, just also describes the aims of the course in 1950 as an attempt to equip the student with the basic knowledge and experienced arm him against any irreparable mistake. He should be able to complete all simple treatments with confidence while knowing his own limitations and when to seek the advice of an expert. So in this training environment, conservation skill and judgment are positioned below the hierarchy of experts. And Forsythe, Halablan, and Gediay, as well as the laborers who were all valued for their skills because they could turn artifacts into data that could be readily interpreted by archeologists and scientists. However, as I hope I've proved to you within this framework, they remain subservient to the predetermined aims of archeologists and others where the judgment of authoritative archeological and scientific experts trumped all other actors in preservation. And so I would like to end this discussion by reviewing the impacts of all of this discussion on conservation's disciplinary and colonial histories and their continuing resonance in contemporary practice in order to consider the profession's future. The words of Billy Melman first mentioned at the start of this paper continue to ring true in the present despite ongoing efforts to decolonize the field. Antiquities continue to be managed by mechanisms that regulate the study of the ancient past, the circulation of knowledge about it and the exposure and preservation of its physical remains. Expertise and authority remain critical research commodities and political tools to use to preserve the past. And as a result, experts play a significant part in heritage and the construction of its meanings despite a more diverse range of conservation actors and stakeholders participating in directed decision-making. And this is evident from the number of foreign archeologists, conservators and scientists working in excavations outside their home countries. And I'm likely not the only one in the Zoom call who can claim this role. What's important is really to consider recent events like Brexit, which expose these issues of equity, which have their origin in the supremacy of Western nations over the other, including both non-scientific approaches as well as people who are not Western, whereby hostility towards the expansion and diversification of sources of expertise has resulted in isolationism and retrojection of equitable access and the engagement with resources. So the future of the conservation profession requires a more synthetic acknowledgement of the field's colonial histories and its continued impact on current practice. So insight into the actors, relationships and institutions that guided the development of archeological conservation better places preservation within colonial and or political contexts, as well as articulates its role in establishing the supremacy of science and other nationalistic aims. This is really relevant discussion for contemporary projects where expertise continues to be an imported product, despite increased calls for financial and intellectual sustainable research. And the other thing I would also state is that these relationships established between experts and conservators in the late 19th and early 20th centuries continue to evolve but are based on that. So for example, archeologists tend to be and scientists will provide proof to make archeological interpretations of the past, which is based on preservation. There's also a distinct difference between archeologists who will remain in the field for the entire dig season and scientists who are respected for their values but will come in for several weeks to do their very directed studies, as well as the fact that you may or may not have conservators working on projects. So I applaud the work of my colleagues who are engaged in this process, but I do recognize that there is still much more to do from diversifying the field to reconsidering the ways in which expertise and authority mediates heritage. And I'd really like to thank you for your time as well as all of the following institutions and individuals, especially Erin Brody, Melissa Kratik and Brooke Norton at the Baden Museum of biblical archeology for sharing the archives with me. And I'd like to thank everybody for your time and I'm very happy to answer any questions. So I don't know if there are any questions that anybody has or comments. I'm happy to, or anything. Thank you so much, so much, Katelyn, yeah. Sorry, I wasn't sure if Christine was gonna jump in there but she has to go to class. So I was leaving it open for her. Yes, Christine asked to please take over because she had to step away. So thank you so much for that wonderful talk and people I think were probably clapping. I just couldn't hear them. But we have a question out there from Chris Hoffman. So Chris, if you'd just unmute yourself, go ahead. Hi, thank you so much for such an interesting talk. I really appreciate that. I was wondering if you could reflect a little bit on kind of the situation today in regards to kind of the kind of technological and scientific sophistication of kind of conservation and material science in archeology and how that figures into this dynamic of these kind of boundary conditions and kind of power relations within our field. Yeah, that's a good question. And it's certainly something that I run into is having both training in conservation and material science and engineering. And in many ways, this idea of conservation being an applied science and applied in practical skill often belies the sophistication of the tools that we use in order to interpret and understand and stabilize archeological materials. And I think in many ways that because conservators aren't always seen as producers of research, their use of these tools completely undermines the acknowledgement of that expertise required to use analytical equipment. And in many ways, because analytical equipment is also not always stored in conservation laboratories. It's in archeological laboratories or conservation science laboratories or geoscience, et cetera, other departments. That also means that there's a distinct separation between the conservators who potentially could be using this equipment and also their sort of acknowledgement that they do use this equipment. And I think, so there's that. I think the other thing is that because of this, there is always a tension between how we view applied and practical skill versus theoretical knowledge. And I certainly saw this even between material science and chemistry and biology. And this is also plays out in conservation. So I think that while we're using this equipment on a day and day basis, and not every conservator needs to, but many of us do, I think because we haven't always been seen as directing research or producing research or finding the funds to do that, that it basically minimizes those contributions. I think the other thing that's really important is that also in archeological projects, rarely do the funds come from conservators to support that work. And so this also plays an important goal in how it would be viewed. And I think that also plays a role in academia, both in terms of funding required for research, but also the range and scale of publications that are produced by conservators. So again, it's a very complicated process. And there's definite change. And I think what we really do need to do is acknowledge how our origins really play a role in this dynamic that we're engaging with now. Thank you. So Meg Konke has written a comment in the chat where I thought she was gonna leave it dangling on a tantalizing. And but as she finished her comment, she said, great talk and not surprising that this went on and still does to a certain extent. It seems that the next steps are to show different ways of doing all this. So Meg, did you wanna pop in and elaborate at all or, oh, you're muted. Yeah, I just wanted, I mean, I've read some of your work, Caitlyn, and really find it interesting, although applied to a completely different arena. For example, in the area of rock art research who actually gets to do the conservation and then who gets credit for it and what rock art images are those that people select or sites to people select and how does that play into national politics and so forth, especially with the increase in tourism and what local sites and sites just hoping to hear a little bit more about some explicit projects or strategies to change things. I mean, of course I'm not surprised it went on in the 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s, but of course it's going on in other ways today. And I mean, I participated in similar sorts of situations in the Middle East with one of my field projects that I was in when I was in college, wasn't my project. But anyway, so do you have any examples of some publications that are doing things differently or whatever? Well, I mean, I think one thing is first that in archeological projects, conservators need to hold positions of administrative power. And this means that your playing a role in how research is developed and implemented in the field, but also how resources are being used. And I think the other thing is that in terms of the planning stage, if conservators aren't included from the very beginning, it's very hard to insert yourself and your expertise when your contributions or potential to contribute haven't even been considered in the process of the way the research is being designed. And so, I mean, I think that those are, certainly the project I work on in Turkey, I am an assistant director for I hold that position in terms of managing all the conservation of the immovable and movable fines on site. And in that role, because I'm able to participate in all aspects of administration, both in terms of research and handling personnel, that means I am intimately aware of all the different research goals and where conservation can contribute. So I don't just produce stabilized fines for interpretation. In the field, we also do a whole series of materials analyses of samples and fines to help guide archeological decision-making is this anthropogenic or not anthropogenic calcium carbon material? Do we have a floor? Do we not have a floor? Which depending on preservation can be quite challenging to interpret. The other thing is that we run into a lot of production materials, which are also hard to interpret. So crucibles, wasters, all kinds of things that because of the conservation expertise and understanding technology in the way those materials may degrade in the archeological burial environment means that I can help with that interpretation. Now, I think those are ways of making changes. I would also argue that the work of Nancy Odegard has made significant changes in how conservation is viewed in the process of archeological research. Certainly this can be seen by her work in as a mediator of access to materials both with Kenneth Mann and Lucy in terms of the need for a conservator to make observations about condition directly impacts the archeological interpretation of those fines. And again, these types of things mean that conservation needs to be at the playing field from the start rather than considered as an afterthought. Now, I would also state that for most archeological projects, you're not required by law to have a conservator on staff. Now in Turkey, that is a law and that is incredibly useful because what it means is that a conservator has to visit the site and make observations and sort of do those contributions. If you don't even invite conservation to the project whether or not you view it as being expensive or thinking that the only contribution a conservator has is for reconstructing fines. Again, I think part of this is moving out of our comfort zones and demonstrating the value of conservation observations and contributions to overall archeological research as well as taking an administrative and management role in how we think about archeological sites. So I hope that answers your question. Sorry, you're muted again. Okay, well, I think she said, thank you. Does anyone else wanna jump in with a question? It just feel free to unmute yourself, okay? So, great, great game. Hi, Caitlin, thank you so much for this talk. So just thinking about the Bade Museum collections at least as far as I have worked at the museum with these collections, you and Olivia O'Dwyer are the first to approach the archives from this perspective of conservation and history of conservation. Could you spend a minute talking about some of the limitations or some of the new findings from your work with the archives the past couple of weeks and months? Yeah, no, I should also note Olivia is one of my students, but there are a lot of benefits in looking at archives, particularly the Bade. Now, since conservation is so hard to track in terms of publication, we have to turn to alternative data sources in order to sort of really understand where conservation was included. And so I've been spending time looking at supply lists, looking at staff members, how do they identify in terms of their air of expertise, what they're studying, what kind of tasks are they being asked to do in the field? Where are supplies being purchased? Are they being purchased in the United States or Europe, which Bade tended to do? He would buy things in San Francisco but then also travel to Germany and buy a whole bunch of things there or also purchase in the UK and then export them to Palestine. What is he purchasing? Obviously there are some things like solvents which are flammable or not good to travel with. So you would like, I can see that he's purchasing benzene and amyl acetate and acetone from pharmacies in, sorry, car dealership or mechanic shops where those kinds of supplies are available. So that gives me a sense of the types of materials that might be used, even if I don't have knowledge that there is going to be adhesives. But one thing I have noticed is also Bade did a lot, I mean, the amount of planning that would have gone on in terms of supporting an archeological excavation in the 1920s and 30s is a phenomenal and certainly something we don't contend with because he starts talking to suppliers six or seven months in advance in order to ensure that things can go through customs and travel and then you're waiting on letters between manufacturers or like understanding if materials are available. So there's a lot of that sort of discussion. Another thing that's important is looking at images and sort of the types of things that people are choosing to document. So there's a significant amount of documentation of the race working on reconstruction of the ceramics which is excellent because it gives me a sense of the process, the mental process that race were using in terms of actually reconstructing ceramics, are they going so far as to do fills and reconstructing losses, which can have an incredible impact on how we interpret objects since there are a lot of times you can see full reconstructions of objects that only of which there might only be 20 or 30% actually preserved. This isn't always the case, but it does give you a sense of sort of that approach to how archeological finds must look in order to be published, which is complete. There's also really interesting discussions in the archive related to the types of library materials that are included, like what kind of references are people using? And I can trace based on the letters that Bade and other people have is where they're actually, what books they're purchasing. So he had access to publications by Harold J. Plenderleith, Petrie, any number of other people who talk specifically about conservation, which is fantastic because it means I know that they've got exposed, they're being exposed to the techniques that are being described in those publications. The collegial discussion between experts is also evident on that series of documents between Fink and McCown, talking about the preservation of that particular guilt iron find is also really fascinating and sort of demonstrates that collegiality and the desire to have these things preserved and to want to engage with your colleagues and experts. So it's a rich body of literature. Now, obviously the things that are challenging is what's not present because not everything's complete. And that's the case with most archives, but I found a lot of really interesting stuff at the Bade, which has been really fruitful, I think. This idea of sort of understanding how people utilize the existing literature at that time period when we probably only have 10 or 15 publications specifically on conservation techniques is really important to sort of see the degree to which Bade wanted to engage with preservation. And I can say the other fantastic thing is there's some discussions about where he's purchasing Duco cement, which is a cellulose nitrate adhesive, which then means I know how the finds in the Bade collection are gonna degrade over time because I'm aware of what adhesive's and I know based on conversations with Erin that there hasn't been a lot of conservation post reconstruction either in Palestine or in Berkeley. So that gives us a lot of really good information about what the needs are of the collection in the long term and what kind of failure you might expect from the use of sort of cellulose nitrate, but there's also evidence that shellac was being used as an adhesive. And again, this also degrades over time. So there's a lot of amazing things. I think anytime you work with an archive is work with an open mind and don't go in with completely preconceived notions because other things will pop up like the degree to which people are being paid, the labor scales for payment in Palestine, but then also the difference between what women are being paid versus men in Berkeley is also quite evident. So as well as women and children being paid in local laborers. So I think there's really a lot of amazing things that the archive has and so I'm happy with it. It lends a lot to the ability to reconstruct how Bade and his colleagues were thinking about conservation and implementing it in the field. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. That was a wonderful answer and I think it shows the richness of having such an archive that Bade was incredibly meticulous in his documentation but also raises a lot of questions of other things that come up. But it's really wonderful. Thank you for coming to present today on Zoom and we really appreciated this. Thanks for everyone for attending our last brown bag of the semester and we hope to see everyone in January. Yes, thank you so much for inviting or having me talk. So I hope you all have a lovely winter holiday.