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You too can leave your Tat inside Silbury Hill
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Littlestone
Littlestone
5386 posts

Re: The wisdom to know when...
Mar 05, 2007, 10:11
If what they are sticking back in, to fill the voids, matches the kind of material originally used in its construction, then I say get it in there.

It's the person who wants to include a bronze sword or a crystal I'm worried about.


Yes, I'm sure we're all agreed here that any tat, inside or out is, unacceptable. What's put back to fill the voids though is a different kettle of fish, and the annals of conservation/restoration are sprinkled with well-meaning but disastrous attempts to conserve or restore objects. The wrong sort of fixative for a painting, the wrong sort of stone for a structure, can result in appalling damage.

I'm not sure if I want to open the debate again on what should be done to consolidate Silbury because it's been discussed in detail elsewhere, and anyway the conservation of such a structure is outside my field of expertise. But imagine this scenario (and similar things have happened in other areas of conservation); the voids in Silbury are filled with a material as close as possible to the original. Ten years down the line Silbury starts, not to collapse, but to bulge. Experts are called in and it's discovered that, although the new packing material was similar to the original there are minor differences (or perhaps it's been compressed in the voids at the wrong spec). It's all got to be taken out again. Can it be taken out without further damage to the structure? One of the cardinal rules of conservation is that any treatment to an object must not damage that object and must be reversible.

The alternative to a mass infill would be to consolidate only those areas of Silbury where it's necessary to prevent further degradation - leaving the rest well alone. I don't like the idea of a friggin' great tunnel in Silbury but if it's stable, and there's even the remotest chance that backfilling it might lead to further damage of the structure now or in the future, then it's best to leave it alone. As I said above though, the conservation of a structure such as Silbury is outside my field of expertise - fundamental rules of conservation however do still apply.

Oh, an absolutely no tat anywhere :-)
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Re: The wisdom to know when... (Cursuswalker)		 Replies:
Re: The wisdom to know when... (nigelswift)
Re: The wisdom to know when... (Cursuswalker)
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