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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2015
In 1920 a research laboratory was established by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research at the British Museum under the direction of Dr Alexander Scott, F.R.s., to carry out a particular task, namely, the restoration of museum objects which had suffered as a result of an enforced evacuation underground during the last war. Several years were required to complete the work, which involved the development of safe methods of arresting the decay of materials as diverse as paper, vellum, leather, wood, bone and ivory, stone, fur and feathers and metals.
* The Editors of ANTIQUITY are indebted to Mr H. J. Plenderleith for permission to print his paper read before the London Section of the Society of Chemical Industry, and to Chemistry and Industry, in which journal the paper was first published.
† The paper was read 3 November 1941.
1 H. J. Plenderleith, The Preservation of Antiquities. Oxford University Press.
2 Captain A. Lovett-Cameron, ‘Cleaning a Hoard of Silver Coins’, Museums Journal, vol. 37, p. 251.
3 H. J. Plenderleith, ‘Technical Notes on Chinese Bronzes’, J. Oriental Ceramic Society, 1939, pp. 33-55.
