Last fall we were awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities
Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections grant
to improve how we are managing and storing our archaeological collection.
One of the challenges of archaeological collections
is that they're ever-expanding as we continue to excavate the site.
So we're bringing more materials in
and we are constantly having to think about how we best manage the space.
One of the other things is that we know a lot more
about how to best care for these materials,
ranging from metals to organics,
than we did 20 years ago when the project began.
For example, the paper tags that we used to store in bags contain acid
and we now know that that is not good for the collections
so one of the things with this project
is that we're able to go back and change out all of those tags.
We're also improving the overall environmental aspects of the collection
with better HVAC, better lighting,
things that you might not think about
like the environmental impact of high humidity that it has on metals.
So by improving the environment for the collection
we're doing a lot to help preserve it for the long term
and make sure that it will be sustained in perpetuity.
- Today Jamestown Rediscovery has excavated over 2 million artifacts.
All of those artifacts
—if they're not in our Archaearium
or if they're not on loan
—are currently stored in compact rolling storage in our vault facility.
Each of those contexts are stored in Hollinger boxes in acid-free contexts
and so what we're doing now is going through the process
of returning to the beginning of the project back in 1994
when we first started housing artifacts that we were excavating each season.
In the SCHC process we are currently at JR158AC.
JR stands for Jamestown Rediscovery
and the 158AC is the sequential context
that we hit in the 1998-1999 season.
We began with JR1 which was back in 1994
and since this past September
we've been going through each context sequentially in our archive storage
looking for materials that aren't up to par with current curatorial standards.
So we're looking for acidic bags,
we're looking for acidic paperwork within those bags,
we're testing that, removing it, and replacing it if need be.
We are also returning to some of our archaeological material—
our metals, our copper alloys, and our iron
that were not conserved in the beginning of the project
but having the resources that we have now
and knowing what we know now about that material
that we didn't know in the beginning of the project,
we can now go back and start to reconserve—
in some cases conserve that material for the first time.
- As Curator of Collections, my part in the reorganization
is working with our former study collection
which was arranged by structure.
We are now rearranging the material culture by type,
by form,
by decoration,
and in the case of ceramics by ware type.
These collections will be divided up by date too.
So material from the fort period 1607 to 1624
will be arranged together.
Material from the fort to port period
which is post 1624 when the fort was deconstructed
and to 1699 when the capitol moved to Williamsburg.
And then we will have an 18th century collection
and a 19th century collection
which will consist mainly of Civil War material
because as you know there was a Confederate fort here at the island
and we have acquired quite a few artifacts from that time period as well.
- Hi, we're over here in our our Archaearium Archaeological Museum
and as part of our NEH SCHC grant
we are converting our museum lighting
from halogen, which I have here,
and over to LED.
It's not just as simple as putting in the new bulbs.
We actually have to change over all of our transformers within the units
in order for the systems to work with our dimming system.
But we have over 400 lamps in the museum
ranging from 71 to 75 watts
and our power consumption is going to go down greatly
to roughly 18 watts for our par36's
to about 7 watts for our MR16's.
So we should see a tremendous amount of energy savings
and also we won't see these spikes in temperatures
especially in the summer time
where our HVAC equipment is going to have to counteract
all of the heat produced by the lighting.
We're here in our mechanical room of our archaeology museum
and this was built in 2006
and the idea was to be as green as possible
so we have our geothermal water source heat pumps
but these are kind of reaching the end of their usable lifespan.
The best thing about the changeover of our HVAC equipment
is it is best for the artifacts.
Having tighter controls over humidity and temperature,
we will not see these quick changes in the cases
and what you want to see with artifact storage or exhibit
is very gradual changes over time
and the new equipment will allow for much tighter controls of temperature, humidity
in the actual museum space, in our vault, and in our dry room.
- We are incredibly grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities
for supporting this project.
Without their assistance we probably would not be able to undertake this work
and this project will ensure that this internationally significant collection
will live on for future generations.