How conservators got just the right polish on an Alamo cannon

August 13, 2024 6:44 PM

Although artifacts do need upkeep from time to time, some might look strange with a pristine exterior. Most people don’t expect a bronze cannon used at the Battle of the Alamo to be shiny, for example...
posted by jim in austin (10 comments total)

Admittedly, we kind of got tunnel vision on that and sort of just kept running different experiments to see what we could determine about what the make up of the substance was and ways that we could mitigate it. At some point, they reached back out and said, “hey, maybe you guys could work on this remotely and we could have our cannon back. We’d love to put it back on display.”

This was funny to me as a curator who works with conservators—they are so astonishingly skillful and knowledgeable that they can perform feats indistinguishable from magic, and they want give every object entrusted to their care all the attention it deserves, but occasionally you do have to ask for your cannon back.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:58 PM on August 13 [18 favorites]

I initially read “conservatories” as “conservatives” and thought somehow a new front in the culture war had opened up with artillery battles
posted by Jon_Evil at 7:02 PM on August 13 [4 favorites]

So you're saying, they spent multiple workdays "polishing their cannon"?
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:11 PM on August 13 [6 favorites]

So awesome.

I do some with boardgames, (split corners, tape removal, and the like), but can't imagine the thought that goes into how to deal with stuff like this.
posted by Windopaene at 8:16 PM on August 13 [1 favorite]

Formic acid? They got ants to eat the carbohydrates, maybe?
posted by CCBC at 11:55 PM on August 13 [1 favorite]

Dunno, it'd be nice to see such effort put into valorizing people who weren't fighting to extend slavery.
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 4:17 AM on August 14 [10 favorites]

Dunno, it'd be nice to see such effort put into valorizing people who weren't fighting to extend slavery.

How is this valorizing? Do researchers valorize slavery when they restore Egyptian and Roman artifacts?

I think this is just scientists doing science.
posted by swift at 9:31 AM on August 14 [2 favorites]

The notional museum at the alamo absolutely one billion percent valorizes it. Unless they've changed things recently, there's even a creepy little shrine where you can pray to Daniel Boone.

Likewise, whatever the politics of the people working in the lab, at a larger institutional level TAMU also one billion percent valorizes that shit.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:20 AM on August 14 [2 favorites]

Two hundred years from now I imagine every truth and certitude we hold dear will be risible as well...
posted by jim in austin at 6:14 PM on August 14

Ojala.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:50 PM on August 15 [1 favorite]