The Investigative Conservation of a Poorly Preserved Anglo-Saxon Lyre from Prittlewell

Elizabeth Barham

1 The site and the find will be discussed further in forthcom-ing publications in the MoLAS monograph series.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

Zwischen 2004 und 2005 wurde die erste aufLaborarbeiten basierende Untersuchung einerangelsächsischen Leier aus Großbritannien durch-geführt – ein Meilenstein der britischen Musik-archäologie. Bei einer Ausgrabung in Essex, Süd-ostengland, hatte der Museum of LondonArchaeological Service Ende 2003 eine erstaunlicheEntdeckung gemacht: eine noch ungestörte angel-sächsische Grabkammer (um 600 n. Chr.). Zu denin dieser Kammer niedergelegten Objekten gehör-te ein nicht identifizierbarer hölzerner Gegen-stand, der sich in einem schlechen Erhaltungszu-stand befand. Er wurde mit der ihn umgebendenErde ins Labor gebracht, geröntgt, sowie einer for-schungsintensiven Konservierung unterzogen. DieArbeit führte zu dem Ergebnis, dass es sich um eineLeier des Sutton-Hoo-Typs handelt, die mit derVorderseite nach unten lag und in ihre Einzelteilezerfallen war. Dennoch konnte erstmals ein Ein-druck von der Gesamtlänge und -breite des Instru-ments gewonnen werden. Mit Hilfe von CT-Auf-nahmen konnten die an den Oberflächen nichtsichtbaren Verbindungen und ihre Passformenuntereinander in situ erkannt werden. Daraufhinwurde der Erdblock umgedreht, sodass die zuvorunten liegende Erdschicht vom Instrument ent-fernt werden konnte und die Vorderseite sichtbarwurde. Laseraufnahmen und hochauflösende digi-tale Fotografie wurden daraufhin zur Aufnahmebeider Oberflächen eingesetzt. Kleine Proben desMaterials genügten, um das Holz zu bestimmenund den Konservierungsprozess einzuleiten. Diesegewonnene Erfahrung belegt das Ausmaß, in demrelevante Informationen auch unter nicht ebenvielversprechenden Umständen gewonnen werdenkönnen und zeigt den Wert einer minutiösen Her-angehensweise in der Ausgrabung stark fragmen-tierter hölzerner Musikinstrumente.

There were many rare and beautiful objects dis-covered in the Anglo-Saxon chamber grave at Prit-

tlewell in Essex in 20031, but the lyre from thegrave has been one of the most challenging to con-serve and interpret, because so little survives. Infact at times it has been like conserving the ghostof an object, rather than the object itself. Despitethis, a surprising amount has been discoveredabout the structure of the instrument, even thoughit is very poorly preserved.

It provides the first direct archaeological evi-dence of dimensions of an Anglo-Saxon lyre fromBritain, and shows how various fragments foundfrom some previous examples of lyres interrelateand what purpose they probably served.

This paper is about the conservation processrather than drawing conclusions about the artefact,the grave and its occupant, because the project ofwhich it is a part is still ongoing, but the applica-tion of investigative techniques may be useful toothers in the field of archaeological musical stud-ies.

The chamber grave in which the lyre lay wasdiscovered during an archaeological evaluation byMoLAS prior to the widening of a road nearSouthend, a large town in the south-east of Eng-land, close to the northern edge of the Thamesestuary. The project was initially a simple test ofarchaeological potential, opening three trenches ongreen space at the edge of a road, in soil which,below the topsoil, was essentially damp sand overgravel. Fortunately one of the trenches was situat-ed directly over the remains of the chamber. Soonafter its excavation had started, a host of artefactsbegan to appear, mostly copper and iron objects,the copper in relatively good condition, the ironless so. There were virtually no organic remains.Those organic remains that did survive were most-ly close to copper and silver fittings or artefacts.Some patchy waterlogging may also have played

a part. In the case of the lyre, this meant that verylittle of the original body of the instrument hadsurvived, as the fittings are small and most of itwould have been made of wood.

Figure 1 shows the location of the lyre in thechamber in relation to some of the other objectsand Figure 2 an image of the remains in situ on thechamber floor. The remains mostly consisted justof a woody stain with metal fittings. It was diffi-cult to identify the lyre while in the ground, andon British sites it is apparently quite common notto initially recognise these instruments, because ofthe extent of decay2. As a result, remains that sur-vive have tended to come up as fragments that aredifficult to relate to each other, and they haverarely been conserved. Fortunately this instrumenthad not been disturbed during burial, and anarchaeologist was able to define the stain well inthe ground, especially given the number of otherobjects in the chamber that had hung above it andthat had lain on the floor nearby. In fact a concret-ed iron object had fallen onto the lyre during bur-ial, but it was later possible to separate the two offsite, without damage to either item.

From the early stages of the conservationprocess, the consultant finds specialist Dr GraemeLawson was very helpful in advising on likely fea-tures to recognise and in explaining the potentialfind’s wider significance. This was very importantto the investigative work, and the collaborationbetween archaeologists and conservators on theproject was also crucial.

The image of the lyre in situ (Fig. 2) wasalready of great interest, as it provided approximatedimensions of the instrument for the first time, butthere was clearly more to know from the fittingsand how they related to any woody remains. Theaim of the investigative conservation work wasfirstly to provide clearer evidence that the objectwas a lyre; to record any proportions and dimen-sions; and then to stabilise and record whatremains there were for display and interpretationpurposes.

The object was block-lifted in and on its sur-rounding soil, that is, taken up as one block of soil,surrounded by temporary support materials andundermined with metal plates. It is fairly standardconservation practice in Britain to lift such anobject whole and conserve it off site, so that non-invasive and more detailed investigation can bedone than is possible in the field. The result was ablock of soil circa 150 mm thick with the very thinlayer of remains close to the surface. The blockwas kept damp by spraying with deionised waterand in cool, dark storage under plastic. This wasdone to prevent the wood from drying out in anuncontrolled manner, which can cause shrinkageand distortion prior to conservation treatment,

and cool, dark storage was necessary to discouragemould-growth.

The object was firstly X-rayed in a convention-al way. Due to its size, this was done in a lead-lined room at an English Heritage facility. On thepositive side, the resulting X-radiographs provid-ed enough information to confirm that the objectwas a lyre through its diagnostic features. Theyalso showed that the object was lying on its face.However conventional X-radiography had limita-tions: the images gave insufficient detail because ofthe density of the block and the delicacy of themetal fittings of the object. The result was alsovery two-dimensional; effective images could notbe taken from the sides of this delicate and thinartefact. It was also necessary to fit the image overtwo plates, because the object was twice as long asthe larger size of X-radiographic plates available;so viewing and assessing the image as a whole wasnot easy.

It was realised that a computerised axialtomography (CT) scan was needed. This tech-nique is not often used in our archaeological pro-jects because of the cost and time involved in set-ting it up, but was worthwhile for this type ofartefact. The scan was done out-of-hours, at ahospital-based scanner centre in west London.The scanner, a Siemens “Somatom Sensation”machine, was one of the most technologically up-to-date in Britain at that time. The scan takes digi-tal X-ray images or “tomograms” and can scan thewhole in less than a minute (Fig. 3). It provides athree-dimensional digital image that can bemanipulated on the screen and is much morepowerful than conventional X-radiography so itcould bring out more detail.

New fittings could be seen that had not beenvisible before. The locations of the metal fittingscould be seen in three dimensions, and it was pos-sible to see which fittings belonged to which sideof the instrument. In this way it also gave animpression of the depth of the object remains. Itwas also possible to make a preliminary assess-ment of the condition of the fittings. The resultwas a very flexible imaging tool, as one can exam-ine the image on the screen, store the data on adisk or print it out in hard copy as radiographs.

The scanning work provided both a goodrecord and a guide to further investigation. Therewas then sufficient information to clean the sur-face lightly with small hand tools. Once clarified,the lyre surface was also digitally photographed athigh resolution, some of it in stereo. The resolu-tion of these images makes it possible to zoom inclosely for detail on-screen. The surface was also

Elizabeth Barham378

2 personal communication Dr. Graeme Lawson.

drawn by an archaeological artist and, in conjunc-tion with the conservator, detailed measurementswere taken of the surface elements and the dis-tances between them.

The surface was also laser-scanned (Fig. 4); thisis a very detailed way of recording surface con-tours. The laser records surface topography bymeasuring it in a series of tiny laser points acrossthe surface, and this builds up a digital image of itwhich can be used as a record or even as a basis formaking a replica.

The laser was portable, so it was not necessaryto move the object, and the work took approxi-mately one hour. The scan was expensive but part-ly funded by the Southend Museums Service, asthey understood the potential benefits of the workfor recording and future display purposes. Theimages and drawings could be used in a conven-tional way for a publication. However, it wouldalso be possible to eventually use all the scan data,images and drawings and knit them together tomake an interactive display to make this very frag-mentary object more understandable, via a websiteor in a gallery as part of a museum exhibition. Thelaser data could even be used to recreate a replicaof the original soil block.

The detail in which the artefact was recordedusing these methods was considerable, but it wasclear that in order to conserve the wood remainseffectively, it would be necessary to eventually dis-mantle the block, so non-invasive recording priorto this was very important.

Once all of these recording processes of thissurface were completed, it was then necessary toclarify the other side (the original front face) of thelyre by turning the block over. It was consideredwhether it would be necessary to divide the blockbecause of the shifting weight of wet sand on thedelicate fittings and the difficulty of turning theblock in a controlled way. However, the CT scanshowed there so much gravel in the block, that itwould have been too disruptive to the remains todo this.

Instead, the surface was faced thickly in layersof wet Japanese tissue, the sides of the block werebound more tightly, and it was turned as a wholebetween two strapped boards. This was successful;besides keeping all in place, the wet tissue alsoprovided a support cradle which could be sprayedregularly with deionised water to help keep theremains damp during the work.

Small hand tools, sprays and swabs of de-ionised water were then used to excavate down tothe original surface. The radiographs were used totrack where fittings should be. The first layer to bediscovered was a surprising dark layer of stainingand plant fibre remains from the decayed chamberfloor. Beneath that lay the remains of the instru-

ment itself: a very thin layer of artefact fragments,for example, Figure 5, in their supporting sand.Much of it was only a dark brown woody stain,but the main joints of the upper cross-bar seemedquite well preserved directly under their decora-tive metal strengthening plates. The new surfacewas drawn, photographed and laser scanned, and itwas then time to dismantle the block to conservethe surviving fragments of wood.

When removing any woody stain remains thatno longer had a structure, an excavation grid of 20mm squares on polyester film was overlaid and thesand with its stain was removed in 20 mm2 spits.The taking of these sand samples was done on therecommendation of the finds specialist as he feltthey could be useful to analysts in the future. Thewood fragments were also mapped 1:1 on film asthey were lifted out. The fragments were support-ed on small “rafts” of polyester film and kept inarchival plastic boxes. Small samples for woodidentification were then taken prior to conserva-tion treatment.

It was difficult to decide how best to treat thewood, as the associated delicate metalwork pre-cluded standard immersion treatments in poly-ethylene glycol (PEG) or dewatering chemicals.Eventually it was decided to pipette on appropri-ate molecular weight and incremental concentra-tions of PEG solution. It was also decided tofreeze-dry the fragments in a freezer, rather thanby using a freeze-dryer, to avoid any effects ofpulling a vacuum on the fittings. Where necessarystable reversible adhesives were used to conservethe metal fittings. Now consolidated and fully dry,the fragments have been packed into archival plas-tic boxes, supported to enable them to be easilyviewed with as little handling as possible. Each hasbeen related to its location on the diagrams madeof the remains in situ in the block. There is poten-tial for further analysis of the metal compositionof the fittings and the structure of the remainingwood elements at a later stage in the archaeologicalproject.

The analysis and interpretation of the lyre isstill a work in progress. It is important to notethat the work has taken place over a long period,partly because the external scanning arrangementsand the agreement of costs have taken some time,and also because there have been over a hundredother vulnerable objects to work on in the mean-time from the same chamber grave. It has beennecessary to keep the object damp continuouslywhen not working on it, which can be quitelabour intensive. Although the work on it proba-bly equates to circa 20 days of conservation timetaken place over 1.5 years, 1 : 1 drawings andobservation over that period suggest that therehas been no noticeable deterioration in the wood

The Investigative Conservation of a Poorly Preserved Anglo-Saxon Lyre from Prittlewell 379

since excavation. However in this case the remainsare fragments; the wood identification work hasshown that the cell structure is not in good condi-tion, and some of it has mineralised through prox-imity to its iron fittings. If it were better pre-served, it would have required a differentapproach and timescale.

Alongside the conservation analysis and inter-pretation of the object itself, a very importantoutcome has been the establishment of a thor-ough virtual record of the lyre. In addition to itsanalytical value, this could be a very useful tool inthe future public display of the lyre. It could helpthe museum visitors to understand this very frag-

mentary artefact despite its condition and showvisitors how conclusions have been reached in itsinterpretation through the process of archaeo-logical conservation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to thank the Museum ofLondon Archaeology Service project teams,Dr. Graeme Lawson, the Museum of London Con-servation Departement, English Heritage, Southendon the Sea Borough Council and Southend Muse-ums Service.

Elizabeth Barham380

Fig. 1 A prelimenary reconstruction of the Prittlewell chamber-grave layout. Copyright MoLAS.

The Investigative Conservation of a Poorly Preserved Anglo-Saxon Lyre from Prittlewell 381

Fig. 2 Lyre remains in situ. Copyright Andy Choppingat MoLAS.

Fig. 3 A Prittlewell artefact enters the CT scanner.Copyright Museum of London.

Fig. 5 A fitting from the lyre with surrounding woodremains. Copyright Museum of London.

Fig. 4 The lyre surface is laser-scanned. CopyrightAndy Chopping at MoLAS.

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