Analyse microbiologique des bains de traitement des objets archéologiques composites fer/bois gorgé d'eau

Microbiological analysis of baths for the treatment of iron/waterlogged wood composite archaeological object

¹ Laboratoire Arc'Antique, Nantes (arcantique.recherche@wanadoo.fr)
² Centre de Recherche pour la Conservation des Documents Graphiques (CRCDG), CNRS UMR 8573, section Microbiologie, Paris,
³ Atelier Régional de Conservation Nucléart (ARC-Nucléart), CEA, Grenoble

Abstract

The conservation and restoration of archaeological objects is based on a 5 step procedure which has the main objectives on one hand to (re)-discover the original surface of the object and on the other hand to preserve its details of fabrication. These protocols are well known when applied on waterlogged woods or iron objects separately, but they are incompatible when applied on waterlogged wood / iron composite artefacts.

French Arc'Antique, ARC-Nucléart and CRCDG laboratories are involved in a 3 years research program which deals with the testing of a new conservation and restoration protocol based on the concomitant use of a corrosion inhibitor for the iron protection and polyethylene glycol for the consolidation of wood.

This paper present the first stage of this protocol applied on an important collection of 29 rifles of the seventeen century discovered in the Mediterranean Sea. We point out the apparition in the storage tanks of each laboratory of an important microbial and fungi contamination. Before choosing the appropriate biocide, we describe and count all this biomass and wonder if they do not influence the electrochemical properties of the electrolytes.