ABSTRACT
Conservators contribute extensively to the study of archaeological textiles. The detailed examination of textiles that precedes every conservation intervention reveals information about their technology, construction, wear, damage and loss. For finds of archaeological textiles, the conservator’s specialist observation skills, combined with knowledge of the complexity and interactivity of objects within specific environments, can provide valuable evidence of dynamic interaction with their immediate post-depositional burial environment. Investigative conservation sheds light on textile remains and the extent to which the nature and state of their preservation contribute additional perspectives on the associated context and human activities. The conservator’s eye and expert knowledge enable them to help make sense of these artefacts beyond the textile. In human burial contexts, these often mere scraps of fabric are environmental markers of both the post-mortem interval and the post-depositional environment surrounding a body, revealing taphonomic changes that a burial may have undergone during its lifetime. A multidisciplinary team’s study of deliberately concealed, early nineteenth-century foetal coffin burials in Sweden demonstrates that detailed visual examination of textiles made during investigative conservation can contribute perspectives beyond standard technical analysis.
