That Roman pottery glue failed on me mid-repair

I was restoring a 2nd century bowl from a dig near Colchester last weekend and the adhesive gave out after just 8 hours. The whole piece split back into 15 fragments all over my bench. Had to spend Sunday re-cataloging every shard from scratch. Anyone else had modern adhesives fail on ancient artifacts like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

harris.uma24d ago

Dropped 15 shards back on the bench and had to re-catalog every single one? That's the kind of Monday that makes you want to throw the whole artifact across the room. Sounds like your glue was more of a suggestion than a promise, classic move from modern chemistry on ancient tech.

margaret9924d ago

Fifteen shards is just cruel, I feel that deep in my soul. Had a similar thing happen with a whole pot once, still finding tiny pieces in my workspace weeks later.