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Preservation of the Statues
Buried for thousands of years under many meters of soil, the statues had become broken and deformed. At the Smithsonian Institution's Conservation Analytical Laboratory,
conservators carefully uncovered the plaster statues from the block of earth in which they were embedded. Every step of this lengthy, painstaking process was recorded in drawings, photographs, videotape, and detailed notes. After
each piece was removed and cleaned, conservators applied a strengthener so that it could be handled safely and, later, joined to other fragments. Conservators also used a scanning electron microscope and other analytical
instruments to determine how the statues were made as well as the materials used in making them, and to develop a method of strengthening the plaster. |
