Greco-Roman Coin

This treatment was a simple exercise in order to get a handle on scalpel skills with such a small yet fragile object. The purpose of this treatment was to reduce corrosion products in order to make the profile of the emperor on the back more readable. The raking light photo on the right shows how distracting these corrosion mounds are to the profile of the emperor depicted on the coin. Thankfully, a database of coins exists which have the molds for coins manufactured during this time. Below this text you can see the image of what the coin may have looked like with Antoninus Pius shown. The treatment is as follows:

• Mechanical surface cleaning using acupuncture needles, scalpels and brushes
• Degrease with ethanol
• Put in the desiccator chamber with silica gel and monitoring (study collection) – for changes and active corrosion

The total treatment hours for this object was 25 hours, proving to be difficult to remove highly en grained corrosion layers that you see on the right.