Restorer damages valuable mosaics in "restauration" work

[Thanas]

Turkey's Hatay Archaeology Museum has a great collection of Roman mosaics.
They sent a few out to be cleaned/restored. 9 came back damaged.
A few before/after pictures.




Link

An official from the ministry of culture confirmed that there had been “erroneous practices” during the restoration, which he attributed to the “adding of [mosaic] pieces” into the originals. He confirmed that all restorations were on hold while the issue was being investigated.

However, the official also confirmed that the restorers had years of experience, including the restoration of the renowned mosaics at Zeugma Mosaic Museum in south-eastern Turkey.

"Years of experience", huh?

What the fuck did they do, blast them with a Kärcher?

[Borgholio]

Are these the same idiots that glued a piece of an Egyptian mask on with superglue when it fell off during cleaning?

[Flagg]

Turkey's Hatay Archaeology Museum has a great collection of Roman mosaics.
They sent a few out to be cleaned/restored. 9 came back damaged.
A few before/after pictures.
<SNIP Pictures>

An official from the ministry of culture confirmed that there had been “erroneous practices” during the restoration, which he attributed to the “adding of [mosaic] pieces” into the originals. He confirmed that all restorations were on hold while the issue was being investigated.

However, the official also confirmed that the restorers had years of experience, including the restoration of the renowned mosaics at Zeugma Mosaic Museum in south-eastern Turkey.

"Years of experience", huh?

What the fuck did they do, blast them with a Kärcher?

Not as bad as that crazy woman with the Jesus painting, but damn, not good. Had to look up what a "Kärcher" is (it's a pressure washer), and yeah, it kind of looks like that, a particle blaster, or they dropped them and did their best to put them back together from pictures. It's a sad time for the world when we have nutjobs blowing up historical sites and monuments on purpose because it somehow clashes with their extremism and "expert restorers" doing... Whatever the fuck that is. I think our best hope is that these are very bad forgeries and the originals were sold to some rich collector. And that just makes me want to puke.

EDIT: Removed pics from reply.

[Thanas]

Are these the same idiots that glued a piece of an Egyptian mask on with superglue when it fell off during cleaning?

No, those were the guys at Egypt National museum, and the Egyptian mask was actually the burial mask of King Tut-Ankh-Amun.

EDIT: The restorers claim that what happened is that they discovered a lot of the pieces were not original (ok) and then fixed that -presumably by ripping out the unoriginal pieces and trying to restore it by original stones alone (NOT OK. Especially not if the "new" pieces were handcrafted to replace damaged old ones, so the structure will not work without the "new" pieces anymore). At least one would expect them to have consulted with the museum beforehand and made some models before "restoring" the mosaics.

[Purple]

Are the originals at least well documented? Maybe they could be re-restorted into their original form somehow if the records are good? Even if that means just building new ones from scratch at least it beats loosing them forever to idiots.

[Flagg]

I just can't get over how faded they look and how much detail was lost. Have these been restored before? Even if they had been, the organization responsible for making masterpieces look like Crayola disasters on shower tiles need to be sued. The only problem is coming up with a value since these are priceless. But I'm sure someone can think up a number in the billions area, not that they would ever collect anything near that much. I'm just... I'm still in shock at the... I can't think up a suitable word, so I'll use "desecration" as a placeholder. In less civilized times there'd likely be calls for these people to be horsewhipped. Good for them it's not less civilized times. Even if it seems that way lately.

[Borgholio]

Wait, they removed the unoriginal pieces and put the mosaics back together with just the original pieces? And they thought it wouldn't make a difference in how it looked?

[Thanas]

Wait, they removed the unoriginal pieces and put the mosaics back together with just the original pieces? And they thought it wouldn't make a difference in how it looked?

That is my take on it based on the vague elaboration of them fixing an "earlier" restoration that was using now illegal methods (which replacing original with new stones is these days). And it is the only explanation I can think of right now that does not make them look like wilfully destructive idiots - more like idiots which did not use proper care and proper methods before "repairing" the work.

I just can't get over how faded they look and how much detail was lost. Have these been restored before?

Thankfully, the damage can most likely been repaired, provided they pony up the money. Any fix however will probably have to use repaired and new pieces anyway. As for documentation, sadly most stuff is undocumented in Turkey still. But chances are the museum has photographs and we can always use archeological methods to find out what was supposed to go where. So, with a lot of caveats, I would say the damage is repairable, it is just - how much are you willing to pay and how much "new" unoriginal material are you willing to put into it?

What bothers me the most is that a lot of original paint seems to have been lost and that will take very long to replace, if one even wants to replace it due to philosophical reasons.

[Thanas]

As an aside, I really hope that when the famous dove mosaics of Rome need repair, they better get a real firm handle on the case.

[Flagg]

I just can't get over how faded they look and how much detail was lost. Have these been restored before?

Thankfully, the damage can most likely been repaired, provided they pony up the money. Any fix however will probably have to use repaired and new pieces anyway. As for documentation, sadly most stuff is undocumented in Turkey still. But chances are the museum has photographs and we can always use archeological methods to find out what was supposed to go where. So, with a lot of caveats, I would say the damage is repairable, it is just - how much are you willing to pay and how much "new" unoriginal material are you willing to put into it?

What bothers me the most is that a lot of original paint seems to have been lost and that will take very long to replace, if one even wants to replace it due to philosophical reasons.

Yeah, I'm kind of looking and saying to myself "total loss" simply because it's probably going to take more time and resources to repair these than they are worth (that just sounds horrible, and my stomach turned a bit as I typed it), when there are surely other works in need of restoration and well... The assumed other works aren't going to be easier or cheaper to restore with a big delay since they aren't getting any younger.

[Thanas]

No, these will surely be restored. Why? Because Turkey has made a huge stink about western universities since over a year ago, wanting to nationalize research because apparently foreigners are all incompetent (and because they want to get tourists). They cannot afford this PR disaster, so they will restore them now that this story has hit major news. Which is good.

[Flagg]

No, these will surely be restored. Why? Because Turkey has made a huge stink about western universities since over a year ago, wanting to nationalize research because apparently foreigners are all incompetent (and because they want to get tourists). They cannot afford this PR disaster, so they will restore them now that this story has hit major news. Which is good.

Well that's some good news, then. I hate to see things defiled (I knew I'd find the right word eventually! ) and then left that way due to budgetary restraints. Let's just hope whoever does it this time, does it correctly or they may well be horsewhipped.