Abstract

National Museums Scotland’s (NMS) new permanent Ancient Egypt gallery project at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh gave an opportunity for current conservators and curators to collaboratively assess and evaluate historic conservation and restoration treatments. Restoration had been an integral element in transforming archaeological fragments from Egypt into museum display objects in the UK, and restoration often went beyond the purposes of stabilisation and preservation to the point of obscuring or distorting original features. The evaluation of these earlier restorations informed treatment decisions and became one of the major challenges for conservators. Common overarching questions were applied in deciding the appropriate approach balanced against the principles of minimum intervention set out in NMS’s conservation policy and the time and resource limitations of a capital project. The process provided an important opportunity to review the collections’ history and to reassess the museum’s conservation and curatorial aims and values. This article examines some of the issues and challenges with dealing with previously restored ancient Egyptian collections through selected case studies from the project, involving gilded coffins, stone statuary, and smaller inlaid wood and faience items.

摘要

苏格兰国家博物馆 (NMS) 在爱丁堡苏格兰国家博物馆的新永久性古埃及画廊项目为现任保护者和策展人提供了一个机会，以合作评估和评估历史保护和修复处理。修复是将埃及的考古碎片转化为英国博物馆展示物品的一个不可或缺的要素，修复往往超出了稳定和保存的目的，以至于模糊或扭曲了原始特征。对这些早期修复体的评估为处理决策提供依据，并成为保护人员面临的主要挑战之一。在根据 NMS 保护政策中规定的最小干预原则以及资本项目的时间和资源限制来决定适当的方法时，应用了共同的总体问题。这个过程提供了一个重要的机会来回顾藏品的历史并重新评估博物馆的保护和策展目标和价值。本文通过从项目中选择的案例研究，探讨了处理先前修复的古埃及藏品时遇到的一些问题和挑战，涉及镀金棺材、石像以及较小的镶嵌木头和彩陶项目。