Re: Digging Silbury | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

Silbury Hill 180

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Digging Silbury

Littlestone Oct 10, 2006 20:58:42

Replying to FourWinds

I agree with marking restoration with a date.

Absolutely not. Unnecessarily adding anything to an object is considered by all professional conservation bodies as bad as taking anything away from it. There may have been some small justification for dating restorations in a bygone age but not now - now there are paper and electronic records.

But leaving a fecking portal into fairy land is ridiculous!

Yup, in fact it's not only ridiculous it's also unprofessional and totally unethical.

FourWinds Oct 10, 2006 21:16:52

Replying to Littlestone

Littlestone wrote:

Absolutely not. Unnecessarily adding anything to an object is considered by all professional conservation bodies as bad as taking anything away from it.

I'm talking about things like this concrete pillar - http://www.megalithomania.com/show/image/5651 - when you add something to stop a thing collapsing what should you do? Make it subtle (from a distance) and mark it, or build a redbrick pillar (such as at Ty Newydd) that everyone moans about?

There are stones at Knowth that would easily be considered as original if they weren't marked with OPW. As Knowth is one big circus attraction anyway it probably doesn't matter so much there.