From the 1902 inception of our museum there has been a need to have artefacts cleaned, stabilised, assembled, and restored. Many objects kept in the museum were processed during that early period using methods and products available at the time. We do not know who worked on the materials, but it likely involved people from various backgrounds; labourers, archaeologists, historians, even museum guards. Under the Austrian administration the more demanding restorations were performed in Vienna.
A restoration department, popularly known as "the laboratory," was set up in the second half of the 20th century, specifically for the development of a new AMI permanent exhibition installed in 1968 and 1973.
The unit was recast as the Conservation and Restoration Department in 2024. Irrespective of the titles, official and unofficial, the department has always been centred on processing the steady flow of archaeological material recovered at a range of sites.
Upon arrival at the museum, the material is immediately washed, sorted, dried, and packaged. Conservation and restoration are the next steps, where fragments are thoroughly examined, cleaned, consolidated, and reassembled, with missing parts reconstructed when possible.
The most common materials our department works on are ceramics, glass, metal, and stone, but we also often treat objects of bone and amber, as well as fragments of frescoes and mosaics.
When necessary, our staff also work in the field, performing primary in situ treatment of finds, such as collecting urns from the prehistoric necropolis behind the Twin Gates, protective edge consolidation, even full treatment, of mosaics and frescoes at the Kandler Street site in Pula, or the conservation and restoration of two piers of the inside gate to the back of the Twin Gates.
The department also performs work for other museum institutions.
