Case Study

Brief description of the intervention

The first objective of the project to recover the many textile fragments, probably coming from a single cloth belonging to Merit’s funeral kit, was to define methodological lines of intervention, from cleaning to consolidation, strictly calibrated according to the real conservation needs of the find. The protocol therefore took into account the complexity of the preservation history of the artifact, without neglecting the sustainability aspect of its exposure as well as its long-term storage. 

The proposed solutions for structural consolidation had as their purpose the recovery of the correct formal and dimensional values of the cloth, which, at this point in its conservative history, has a fragmentary condition, which severely limits its understanding and guides the operational choices towards the application of support fabrics that have the function of continuous structural support for weaving. 

The ultimate objective was not only an optimal restoration from a conservative point of view, but also a full enhancement of the product in terms of reading and interpreting its formal values. 

After a long and demanding preliminary phase of study and analytical investigations, physical cleaning and controlled humidification for the recovery of the most serious deformations, the textile fragments were consolidated with a sandwich technique on dyed Lyon veil, with restoration points distributed on a checkerboard, to accompany the ancient textile in case of both exposure and storage by winding on conservative pipes. 

Based on the presence or not of the selvedge and other peculiarities of the weaving, hypotheses of juxtaposition of the various elements have been advanced. However, apart from some small fragments, it was not possible to relocate with certainty the larger textile pieces and the proposals stopped at the documentation, pending developments in the research. 

After the intervention, the Merit cloth was returned to the Egyptian Museum and stored in the new section dedicated to large-format archaeological textiles.