• 
• 
• 
• 

Home
Discovery and Context
Description
Mosaics in the Roman World
Mosaics as an Art Form
Explore the Mosaic
Conservation
The Lod Mosaic Center
Exhibition Schedule
Credits
Bibliography

Conservation of incisions and synopia

During the cleaning of the backing mortars (mainly mortars from the nucleus and lime bed) we succeeded in conserving part of the discovered under painting (synopia) and incision (graphia) used by the mosaic master to guide the layout of the mosaic. One part of these fragments has from one side the painting and from the other side the positives of the footprints. This makes our task more complicated, but we succeeded to deal with this problem as well.

• Detachment of the plaster with synopia(incision): the fragment was pre consolidated with Paraloid B72 in Acetone(60g/l) and layer of gauze was glued on it with Paraloid B72 in Acetone(150g/l); the layer of mortar was detached mechanically from the tesselatum with extreme care.
• Fabrication of new supports for the one sided fragments: Every fragment will be positioned on Aerolam panel and fixed with lime mortar on it.
• Cleaning of the facing: very carefully using cotton swabs with acetone and scalpels.
• Consolidation of the paint layer and the plaster: Paraloid B72 in ethanol (30g/l) will be used.
• Fabrication of new supports for the two sided fragments: special transparent polycarbonate boxes will be produced in order to permit the exhibition of the both sites of the fragments.
• Cleaning of the facing: very carefully using cotton swabs with acetone and scalpels.
• Consolidation of the paint layer and the plaster: ethyl  silicate for the plaster and Paraloid B72 in ethanol (30g/l) for the painting.
• Molding: for the purposes of documentation and research a flexible mold from every fragment with positive of footprint will be produced (RTV silicon will be used for this purpose). The same will be done with the fragments with incision –after that a negative will be produced and exposed. In this case we have the positive of the incision - the mortar infill inside the "channel" produced by the instrument used to make the line.

Conservation: 1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7  |  8  |  9  |  10  |  11 | Next page