Bancroft Mosaic Conservation Project- Milton Keynes Museum

Bancroft Villa Mosaic: Conservation Project

Tabatha Barton, Archaeology Curator and Collections ConservatorFunded by the South-East Museums Development Programme and the Association for the Study and Preservation of Roman Mosaics

History

Bancroft Villa is one of more than 8 Roman villas in Milton Keynes, it was built as a farmstead in the 1st century CE, and underwent a number of renovations including adding bathhouse complexes and mosaics until it fell out of use in the 5th century CE.

© Milton Keynes Development Corporation. Crown copyright. Used under the Open Government Licence v 3.0 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ Image courtesy of Milton Keynes City Discovery Centre.

Room 8 Mosaic

A floor pavement made of tesserae which are laid in plaster. Tesserae are small squares of stone and ceramic (sometimes even glass) which make up the patterns you see on the mosaic.The mosaic was made by the Cirencester workshop.The most unique part of the mosaic is this laurel wreath- there are only two other examples of it in Roman Britain!

Room 8 is the largest room in the bathhouse complex at Bancroft Roman Villa.But what could this room have been used for?The large size of the room and its position in the bath complex indicates that it was likely a reception room!

What was Room 8 Used for?

Various photos from the excavations in the 1970's and 80's

Excavation and Lifting

Only two panels (2 metres) and 6 metres of coarse border were found during excavation. The mosaic likely would have taken up most of the 8.5 by 6 metre room!The mosaic was covered with netting and PVA adhesive (like white glue!) so that it could be cut into pieces and lifted by the archaeologists.The pieces were then stored upside down until 2019!

Putting the Puzzle Together

How do you put an upside down mosaic together?First, you make sure all the pieces fit together.The mosaic is very heavy, so each piece was put on a piece of wood and slid into place like a giant jig-saw puzzle.

Cleaning the Mosaic

Once we put together the mosaic, we needed to clean it.How do you think you clean a mosaic?We used vacuum cleaners with the nozzles covered to remove the dirt (and not the tesserae!)

Re-backing the Mosaic

Before we could turn the mosaic over, we needed to re-back it with something to make it sturdy.We decided to use hessian as a release layer, and then re-back the mosaic with plaster.

Turning Over the Mosaic

We turned the mosaic over onto an aluminium honeycomb backing. Each piece was flipped over in a padded foam and wood box, and then slid onto the board which had been prepped with epoxy resin adhesive.We were able to get the jigsaw to fit together because we used a tracing of the mosaic to outline exactly where each piece went.

How did we do?

Removing the Netting

The netting and PVA which had been holding the mosaic together for decades turned out to be a lot harder to remove than we thought. In the end, we had to use wall paper steamers to soften the netting, allowing us to take it off by hand!

Cleaning the Front

If you've ever removed a carpet from a floor, you know the floor underneath always need a clean. The same is true of a 2000 year old mosaic floor!Once we'd removed the netting, we had to clean the front of the mosaic using -you guessed it- the vacuum cleaners.

Conservation vs Restoration

The last thing we had to do was fill in all of those gaps. Why did we do this? Gaps can cause further damage to the mosaic, as well as encourage mould growth!Our goal was not to restore the mosaic (to make it look new), but to conserve the mosaic (to stablise it for display).

What's Next?

The mosaic will be part of our Roman section in the upcoming Ancient Galleries at the Milton Keynes Museum.It will be integral to telling the story of the Roman occupation and the daily life of the Romano-British people who lived in Milton Keynes.

Thank you for reading!For more information: https://miltonkeynesmuseum.org.uk/