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T. Roby, L. Alberti, "Technician Training for the Maintenance of In Situ Mosaics"

Over the course of the last century, archaeological excavations have revealed thousands of mosaic pavements from Classical Antiquity, from the Punic/Hellenistic periods to the Roman and Byzantine periods. Mosaics were an integral part of a wide variety of ancient buildings, from public bathhouses and churches to private houses and villas. Their decorative surfaces of stone and glass tesserae are important artistic evidence that sheds light onto the history, religions, and aesthetics of the ancient world. While excavations have raised public awareness of mosaics, they have also removed the soil and rubble that generally protected them for centuries. Once re-exposed and devoid of the protection provided by ancient walls and roofs, mosaic pavements are subjected to a range of destructive environmental forces and detrimental conditions, such as rain, sun, frost, ground water, pollution and growth of vegetation, as well as human abuse and misuse. Years of exposure to the environment results in the rapid deterioration and eventual loss of the tesserae surfaces, followed by that of the lime mortar foundation layers of the mosaic.

In the past, archaeologists responded to the conservation challenge of excavated mosaics by detaching and lifting the tesserae layer and relaying it on a new support, generally of reinforced concrete. The mosaics were then either exhibited or stored in a museum, or sometimes re-laid in situ or simply left somewhere on site. This was the fate of mosaics or parts of mosaics considered of greater importance or significance, due to their figurative subject or their intricate geometric design. The numerous mosaics of lesser importance and quality were often left in situ without any protection except for occasional cement mortar repairs to fill areas of surface loss. In recent decades, archaeologists and conservators have increasingly addressed the deterioration and loss of in situ mosaics. At the same time, both professions recognized the importance of conserving all these figurative and geometric pavements whole and in their original architectural setting in order to better preserve the integrity of their cultural values and authenticity for the future. Preservation of mosaics in situ, however, requires a new approach to archaeological sites – one that recognizes sites not only as resources for current archaeological research and potentially for museum collections, but also as finite cultural resources whose values derive from their place within a landscape and that can benefit the public visiting the site and the surrounding community.

In addition to a different approach, better preservation of mosaics in situ and sites in general also requires people trained and employed specifically to manage and maintain a site on a daily basis. In many countries, such as Tunisia, there are not as yet enough people with these skills able to work on sites, whether they are specialized workers or technicians, professionally trained conservators, or trained site managers. The training of technicians for the maintenance of in situ mosaics in Tunisia was undertaken as a first step towards the training of qualified personnel at all levels to maintain archaeological sites. In the future, their work on mosaics will need to be supervised directly by professionally trained INP conservators when they become available. The technicians will be part of a larger team of workers carrying out less specialized maintenance activities on a site as a whole, such as controlling vegetation and visitors. The work of the mosaic maintenance technicians will form an integral part of the prescribed activities of a site management plan to be developed and executed by the trained manager of the site. Such a plan would identify, among other things, which mosaics should be protected by reburial and then maintained, which should be protected by permanent shelters, presented to the public and maintained, which should be covered seasonally and maintained, and which should be left unprotected and maintained most frequently.

Despite the urgent need to address the deterioration and loss of in situ mosaics, many detached mosaics that were re-laid on sites in Tunisia over the past decades are in need of maintenance or new backing. However, the maintenance and treatment of detached mosaics were not part of the current training activities for several reasons. In situ mosaics on their original bedding were considered a priority by the organizers because they generally are more vulnerable to extended environmental exposure. Also, certain site managers believe that lifting mosaics is the only means of preserving them in the longterm on sites, and it is necessary to disprove this belief. In addition, the treatment of detached mosaics involves the use of different materials, tools and techniques because their modern supports are usually made of reinforced concrete, which performs and deteriorates differently from ancient lime mortars. Therefore, it was considered more appropriate to envisage the treatment of detached mosaics as a topic for a separate training program in the future. Buy It at Lowest Price on Amazon

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