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Hello Hoard viewers it is the 5th July and the Hoard Team is busy at work here in the studio.
Hi my name is Arianna Carini and I go to the Conservation Practice Programme at Cardiff University.
And I am currently cleaning this garnet of gold cloisonné hilt collar.
Just barely uncovering the garnets and gold wire underneath the soil and collecting the soil as samples.
My name is Evelyn Ayre and I am a first year intern from the Queen's University Kingston Ontario Canada Masters of Art Conservation Programme.
Evelyn what are you working on today?
Today I am working on, I am looking at the niello channels on an object that I just finished conserving.
So this is a fragment of a silver and niello sword hilt collar.
And Cym recently noticed that the niello channels have a different cross-section sometimes.
So I am just looking at the cross-section on the niello channels on mine
and as you can see they kind of have a V shape.
At least in this area.
Hello this is Deborah Magnoler here and Cym Storey the Staffordshire Hoard conservators.
As part of keeping up to date with the Hoard's conservation.
There is of course an amount of paperwork and paper trail that needs to be followed
and of course periodic audits that need to be made.
Today we are doing one of such audits so we are checking the physical contents of a box of objects
against our list and against our condition report.
We are also going to make sure all the photographs for the objects are updated
and make sure everything is in order for an eventual audit.
Can you see that needs a new picture?
Yes I will make a note.
So 987 is described the materials are copper or iron. As a fragment with a mass of 21.31grams.
Bent and misshapen sheet metal. Large. Not dateable.
Anything to add to that?
No that sounds right. There is a capsule of soil included.
Okay.
So we have got Arianna and Evelyn here and they are snipping away at thorns.
Girls why precisely are you doing that?
We are preparing the thorns so that we can use them in a pin vice.
And what are you going to use that pin vice on?
Well we use it on cleaning the objects because the metal on the objects in the Hoard is very soft.
And any steel tools would scratch the surface.
And these are quite nice and soft.
They have a nice pointy end which is good for getting into small areas.
But they do not scratch and they have an advantage over a toothpick in that they don't start to splinter at the top
they just sort of become more blunt over time.
Arianna you have only just started this practice of cleaning with thorns
because you are our student here now and you're practising. So how are you finding it?
I am finding it really interesting.
My first few times that I used the thorn in the pin vice I didn't realise how quickly they went blunt
and so the next time that I decided to put in a new thorn I was shocked by how narrow a point it was
and I could actually get into the places between the gold wire filigree that I had been struggling with
just a few minutes before.
Brilliant. So it's all going to work out and as you can see we have got a massive supply of all sort of thorns over here
Berberis. Pyracanthas. We have got probably blackthorns and hawthorns lying around as well.
And they all have different type of flexibilities and different points that we can use.
And of course we thank our friend David and all the friends of the Staffordshire Hoard and of the Museum
who have so generously donated thorns to us.
Say goodbye.
Goodbye.