Editorial

Abstract

Negotiating registers of treatments is a feature of this, the second issue of 2021. The how, when and why of treatments indicate not only something of the approaches and techniques available, but how they are also defined by the wider organisational and cultural needs in which the conservator operates. So, the first contribution, Elaheh Hajjari, Omid Oudbashi and Esmail Hemati Azandaryani’s ‘Technical studies on the mechanisms of corrosion and state of conservation of two hoards of Persian copper coins ( folus) from the Safavid period in Iran’, presents the results of analyses of some lower status coins from Iran. The data generated give an understanding of the way the coins were minted and identify their corrosion products, both of which help conservators to treat them, in the context of their original storage jars, in contrast to previous treatments designed to reveal different object-specific data relating to their iconography and history. The second contribution, Rosie Shepley’s ‘Going off-piste: a case study of the treatment of three lithographic ski posters’, traverses the tricky terrain of client expectation and professional and personal ethics and preferences. In describing the quite different treatments of a set of three posters, she accommodates improving the stability and aesthetic of the posters sufficiently enough for them to be offered for sale by the client, while keeping her treatments aligned with ethical guidance in the profession. In introducing the third article, I should first alert readers that Anthony Read and Bethan Bryan’s ‘Conservation treatment of recently discovered bog bodies at the National Museum of Ireland’ contains images of ancient dead bodies. Read and Bryan give a precise overview of past and current methods of preservation for these invaluable data repositories before describing the results of freeze-drying three recently discovered bodies at NMI with poly-ethylene-glycol. The visual anomalies this treatment provoked prompts their recommendation for a moratorium on its use at NMI until alternative methods are researched. Charles Stable et al. end this mid-year issue with their collaborative assessment of a previous conservation treatment regime that had been charged with transforming archaeological fragments from Egypt into a fulsome museum display at the National Museum of Scotland. In ‘Rediscovering Ancient Egypt: consideration of the legacy, ethics and aesthetics of previously restored Egyptian artefacts’ they unpick the wider concerns at the time to help inform their own approaches to the re-conservation of some of the same items, including gilded coffins, stone statuary, and smaller inlaid wood and faience items. Finally, in my last Editorial I asked if you had seen something different about the feel of the print issue in your hands. This time I think you will have definitely noticed how the print issue arrived via what’s called ‘naked mailing’. This is another response by Icon to reduce it's carbon footprint, so I do hope it landed well with you all! Below is a link to a short survey to gather ICONmember feedback on the ‘naked mailing’ trial for JIC, which involves mailing copies without any non-biodegradable packaging and printing customer addresses directly onto the journal back cover. If your copy has arrived damaged and you need to request a claim, please contact societies@tandf.co.uk, including details of the journal name, the volume and issue number, and your postal address. https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/ F6QDDTC