Kantharos, folding table and fluted plate. Recent conservation treatments and manufacturing techniques of three large scale objects within the Hildesheim Roman silver treasure

Abstract

Additionally to the 2007 published PhD dissertation on the Hildesheim Roman silver treasure the recent conservation of three large scale vessels is described and the conservation concept for a fourth object is given. For the folding table, observations on the manufacturing and decoration techniques are presented for the first time: casting and hammering, hard and soft soldering, metal removing and chiselling as well as diffusion gilding. For stabilization purposes, a laborious stand had to be designed and made from acrylic elements. To stabilize the original fragments of a fluted plate an underlining was made from epoxy resin. The museum visitor gets an idea of the vessel’s original shape, but the fragmentary state is also quite obvious. In contrary to the regular procedure, the metal reconstructions at the large kantharos origin from the first restoration treatment between 1895 and 1900 were used further on for stabilization purposes. No elements were made from epoxy resin to replace these.