ABSTRACT
One ofthe key problems in the study ofmaterial culture is the phenomenon ofloss. Indeed, when it comes to the material past, disappearance is the norm, and preservation is the exception. This fact is widely recognized by historians, who have tried to study the way that uneven rates of survival create a false picture of the past - in terms ofclass, gender, geography and ethnic identity - often working with archaeologists and literary scholars in order to draw a more accurate picture. Alteration, a subcategory of loss, also presents many obstacles for interpretation. Surviving objects may have acquired new parts or a new surface; and ofcourse by the time we come to study any material thing, it will invariably have been recontextualized. Even in those rarest of circumstances when an object still sits in the very spot for which it was originally intended, perhaps in the perfectly intact room ofa magically well-preserved country house, in the moment when we walk into its presence we have created a new encounter.
