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Turns out I was cleaning pottery shards all wrong for like 2 years
I volunteer at the local dig site near my town on weekends and I always scrubbed those little ceramic bits with a stiff brush and soap. Then this older archaeologist named Dave walked by and just stared at me. He said "you're damaging the slip pattern" and handed me a soft toothbrush and plain water. Now I soak them in distilled water for 15 minutes first and barely rub them. Has anyone else accidentally wrecked a piece by being too aggressive with cleaning?
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leo1075d ago
lol this is too real. I did the exact same thing with a bunch of old Roman coins on my first volunteer day. Scrubbed them so hard with dish soap and a rough sponge that you could barely read the emperor's name anymore. The supervisor gave me that same dead stare and I wanted to crawl into a hole. Honestly I felt like a total idiot when I learned about the distilled water trick. Now I just let them sit for a bit and barely touch them. At least we both found out before we wrecked something actually valuable right?
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