Page 299 - Manual for Activities directed at the Underwater Cultural Heritage

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Conditions during storage
The combination of documentation archives and material archives in archaeological repositories implies that professional standards apply for several different aspects. All different materials must be stored in accordance with professional standards of conservation. This applies to paper documents and digital media, but it also expressly applies to heritage items that have been removed from their location, the samples and finds. These can only be archived after having been cleaned, documented and analysed, and after stabilization.
In the curation of archaeological finds, there are two simple, very basic principles to follow according to professional standards of conservation:
• Finds that are not on exhibition must be stored in the dark.
• Finds must not be exposed to wide fluctuations in temperature or relative humidity.
These two basic principles imply that project archives should be stored in conditions that are not susceptible to high light levels or to wide fluctuations in temperature or relative humidity.
Many materials can stand low and high temperatures, and low and high relative humidity, but they must not be subjected to constant variations in either. For
©T. Maarleveld. Archaeologist Chris Dobbs explaining archiving policies at the Mary Rose Musem to international students of the Maritime Archaeology Programme at the University of Southern Denmark. Archives of the Mary Rose in a climatised room, Portsmouth, United Kingdom. Project archives shall include all finds and samples. Archives should be deposited in a sustainable repositor y.
This picture shows the climatised archive room that holds the artifacts from the Mary Rose excavation that are not on display at the Mary Rose Museum.
Curation of project archives