Preserving Ancient Middle Eastern Metalwork:
Rehousing and Conservation Survey of the Oriental Institute's Collection

Thanks to a grant (2010-2013) from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Oriental Institute has been able to rehouse its collection of over 10,000 metal artifacts from the ancient Near East. The majority of the metals collection consists of copper alloys and includes a smaller number of iron, lead, tin, silver and gold artifacts. The mulitfaceted rehousing project included record photography and condition surveys for each artifact for rehousing in new, state-of-the-art museum cabinets. The project also supported the material identification of metals within the collection in order to provide accurate information on metal composition to researchers studying the collection.