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THE PRESERVATION
OF ANTIQUITIES
Time, which antiquates antiquities, and hath an artto make dust of all things, hath yet spared these minormonuments.
(Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia,cap. v.)
THE PRESERVATION
OF ANTIQUITIES
A HANDBOOK FOR CURATORS
TRANSLATED, BY PERMISSION OF THE AUTHORITIES OF THEROYAL MUSEUMS, FROM THE GERMAN OF
Dr FRIEDRICH RATHGEN
Director of the Laboratory of the Royal Museums,Berlin
BY
GEORGE A. AUDEN, M.A., M.D. (Cantab.)
AND
HAROLD A. AUDEN, M.Sc. (Vict.), D.Sc. (Tübingen)
CAMBRIDGE:
at the University Press
1905
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
C. F. CLAY, Manager.
London: AVE MARIA LANE, E.C.
Glasgow: 50, WELLINGTON STREET.
Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS.
New York: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
[All Rights reserved.]
AUTHOR’S PREFACE.
The increasing recognition of the importance of thepreservation of antiquities justifies the publicationof a handbook dealing with this subject. As far as Ican ascertain, with the exception of a short article[1] forwhich I am myself responsible, only one work has appearedwhich covers the whole field—the “Merkbuch[2]”prepared by Dr Voss at the request of the Government.But as this book only gives a selection of the knownmethods of preservation, the need of a more comprehensivepublication will scarcely be denied.
In spite of my ten years’ experience in the specialLaboratory of the Royal Museums and the frequentopportunities of learning the methods in use elsewhere,which the journeys and correspondence arising out of myduties have given me during this period, I do not feelcompetent to produce a review of these various methods[vi]which will be at once exhaustive and sufficiently critical.There are several reasons for this. In the first place theindividual methods have been but rarely published, andeven then through the most varied literary media; oftenthey are only casually mentioned in articles dealing withanthropological or historical subjects. On the other hand,the value of an object to be dealt with may prohibit anattempt