'Jeremy Smith'

JEREMY SMITH: If you think about it, archaeology is actually a very destructive process. You destroy things as you excavate them. And it's rarely possible to excavate a site more than once. And so the detail of recording is really essential. I think because of that, you tend to find that archaeologists record things in great detail, and they're very careful about the way sites are excavated.

At Viewbank, we established four 10 by 10-meter grids across the site. Basically, divided the site into four squares. And an archaeology team worked in each of those four squares, digging down through the stratigraphy, through the layers of history. Normally, you'd have one or two archaeologists working in each square, supervising a team of another eight or so people that might include some archaeology students, and also members of the general community.

We really didn't expect to find that the site would be as well preserved as it was. And we certainly didn't expect to find the old tip site, which contained literally thousands of artefacts relating to the period of the site's greatest significance. So they were great discoveries to make, and they were very exciting. There is something basic about the thrill in archaeology of digging down and finding some artefacts, or even finding the remains of the house, in quite good condition.

The other element that I really enjoyed about Viewbank was that teaching learning experience. A lot of students in archaeology have to travel overseas. They have to go to Egypt. Or they have to go to Greece, or the Middle East, to get opportunities to excavate. And so the experience of being there while people were often digging for the first time was a really pleasing one.

If the site's excavated properly, it should be possible to recreate the picture of what the house looked like at a certain time. Obviously, you find some features still in situ within the house. So marble fireplace fragments, the servant bells, other elements of the house that make sense when you see them archaeologically recorded. It's then possible to try to paint a more detailed picture of what the activities might have been that resulted in these artefacts being deposited within the record.

'1697 Coin - Conservation'

SUSANNA COLLIS: With the coin found at Viewbank-- the conservation team, upon receiving that at the laboratory, would have, firstly, checked to see its structural integrity. Whether it was fragile or not. With metal objects, particularly with coins that tend to be alloyed, the main concern is the deterioration caused by moisture and the carriage of salt into the metal.

So the first things we will do, after checking its stability structurally, is to check whether salts have attacked the coin. That can be an obvious thing when you've got a copper-based coin that's turning a little bit green. Or for want of a better word, can have green pustules over the surface, which would indicate that there's some salt attack going on.

So conservators, at that point, will remove as much as they can of that layer of corrosion which carries the salt. And then we'll put it into a chemical-based treatment. And that treatment is designed to extract the salt out of the metal.

And if you can imagine-- we all know, and feel, that metal is an extremely hard, dense material. To get salt crystals out of that takes a long time, because they need to filter out through the interstices of the metal. And there is that structure. So they come out of the metal, slowly but surely. We'll measure how much salt is in the water, and that will indicate how much salt is coming out of the coin.

After that, we'll rinse the coin. And we will then dry it out. And then, depending on where it's going to go-- if it's going to go on display, we might coat it. We use an acrylic resin to coat the metal, to stop any more environmental attack through moisture, air, and salt, and so forth.

We don't want it to look like it's just been pressed. We like to preserve its history. So as I said, we remove some of the corrosion. The bad corrosion. But we will leave the patina on.

You think of a nice penny that's nicely dark brown, and it might have a few red spots and maybe some green spots around the edge. That's quite acceptable in archaeological conservation. And in fact, we prefer that, because it denotes the history of the object. That it's been in the soil. That it's very old. We wouldn't want to bring it back to a fresh, bright copper surface.

'1697 Coin - History'

JEREMY SMITH: I think there are two possible interpretations for how we managed to find a coin from 1697 located in the ruins at Viewbank.

One, of course, is that in the early days of the colony, there's no really established currency. And any coin that is made of a certain material, has a certain value depending on it's weight and the quality of the material. So a silver coin weighing a certain amount has a certain value, so it's quite possible that this coin from the reign of William III in England was used as standard part of currency in the early use of the colony.

The other idea-- which is probably the one that I tend to support more-- ties into the location of the coin where it was found on the site. It was found in almost the deepest part of the site, thrown into what we would call the foundation deposits-- so the very deepest part of the site excavated to enable the foundations of the house to be built on top. We found the coin buried in this part. So I think it's not unusual practice for a coin to be thrown in, perhaps to bestow good luck on the occupants.

'Buttons - Conservation'

SUSANNA COLLIS: If we were to look at a whole lot of buttons from Viewbank, there might be the metal. The glass. Maybe ceramic buttons. And some wood buttons. Some shell buttons. And some bone buttons.

The conservator might look at that whole collection of buttons and treat them according to a priority of the fragility of the material. So we might look at the bone, the wood, and the shell first, knowing that those three material types have particular needs, and probably urgent needs, once they reach the laboratory. And then the more impervious materials, such as metal, glass, and ceramic, we can treat a little bit later.

The buttons made of bone and shell-- they had to have a very delicate treatment. Bone is classed as an inorganic material, but in saying that, came from an organic source. So it's very fragile. It's likely to warp and crack and split. So with the bone element, the bone buttons, and likewise, the bone dominoes, and even the bone gaming tokens.

When the objects were excavated, it's unavoidable, but they do dry out. And so the change in the conditions very quickly takes it out of equilibrium. And therefore, the material suffers. But that's to be expected. 150 years old. They're not doing too badly now. They're very nicely housed in a stable environment. So that's the best that can be done for those.

'Buttons - History'

SARAH HAYES: Buttons are one of those artefacts that we consider as archaeologists as a frequently lost item. It's the sort of thing that you break, and it pulls off your clothes. And then you drop it, and it falls through the floorboards. And in that way, these sort of objects make it into the archaeological record and really just stay there forever.

Within the homestead itself, a bone button carved by hand in a very rudimentary fashion has an E on it. And it probably belonged to one of the Martin daughters. There was an Emma and an Edith. So we don't know which one. But it probably was a personal item of one of the girls. And she possibly even engraved that letter herself.

These are great artefacts, because you can really get the sense of the person. It was part of their clothing. It was part of their everyday presentation.

'Dining Set - Conservation'

SUSANNA COLLIS: The dining ware, that we have a lot of from Viewbank, was first treated in the field by the archaeologists, who clean fragments as they're found. And they're air dried on drying frames.

After that, they all arrive at the lab. The many, many fragments of diningware and ceramic. And the team of archaeologists and students, and some conservators, spent over three months trying to sort some of those fragments by pattern into whole artefacts.

So for example, you'd have someone perhaps working on one pattern at a time, looking through the drying racks of fragments to find matching pieces, much like a jigsaw. So after perhaps finding enough fragments in order to make nearly a whole plate, or tureen, or cup, or saucer, the work is usually then given over to a conservator to finish. And what the conservator will do is to further clean the pieces, if necessary, and assess the breakages of each fragment to make sure that they do actually go together.

And then the jigsaw puzzle, and the adhering of the fragments, begins. And that can be a fairly quick process, if you have all the materials and space at your disposal. In some cases, if you're joining a plate and you've got 18 pieces, someone might find the other three after you've joined the plate. That can happen too. But certainly, for the Viewbank material, we were able to reconstruct quite a number of serviceware.

'Dining Set - History'

SARAH HAYES: The dinner service at Viewbank is particularly unique, in terms of archaeological sites. I suppose most of the archaeological sites we look at in Australia, for various reasons, are working-class sites. So the variety of ceramics are slightly different to what we've found at Viewbank.

Viewbank has an extensive range, quite a large number, of matching sets of ceramics, which tend to be associated with high wealth. High status. Particularly notable is the summer flowers service, which is about 17 vessels. And some of them are very use-specific.

The pattern is this quite elaborate Victorian pattern. It's got a black transfer print. And then it's decorated on top with enameled colors. People seem to either love it or hate it. Some people think it's quite attractive. Other people think it's disgusting.

And as a whole, the set on a table would have been very over the top. There were large serving vessels that went with it. A soup tureen. There was also a large serving platter, which sat over hot water to keep meat warm. And it had little recesses in it to drain the liquids out of meat.

And this isn't the only matching set of tableware. There was another one called Queen's pattern, which is your more traditional blue and white pattern. But that, also, was quite large, and again, had very use-specific items. And there are a range of other matching sets, as well. So they had an extensive range.

The purpose of these for a wealthier family was they would use a different set for lunch. They'd use a different set for dinner. They'd use a different set when their friends were coming over. Even their servants would have a matching set of vessels. So they required quite a large number of these sets. And the Martins at Viewbank certainly had them.

'Dominos - Conservation'

SUSANNA COLLIS: The dominoes from Viewbank were so small, yet such a complex object to conserve, due to the nature of the materials. They were bone and wood with a copper alloy pin through the middle. Those three materials actually need to be treated in completely different ways with completely different approaches.

In this case, the conservator started by brushing and removing the dirt from the wood. And because they were damp, we can use a solvent to do that. And the solvent will also help get the moisture out of the mental element of the object. Of course, we didn't want any moisture, or any solvent, to touch the bone. Because the bone was quite fragile. So great care was taken, as much as possible, to isolate one part of treating the object to the other part of the object.

After that, very little was done to the material. Some of the wood of the domino was quite friable. Quite spongy. And was in danger of literally disintegrating around the metal pin and from the base of the bone. So in that case, the conservator consolidated the wood. Consolidating the wood usually involves the adding of some kind of water soluble resin into the fabric of the wood. Adding something to wood is very difficult to reverse. So you are adding something to the material. And that's something we very seriously consider and think about in conservation.

So, as I said, such a small object still demanded a very complex and well researched and well thought out approach.

'Dominos and Dolls'

SARAH HAYES: A number of objects are related to the children, and what they were doing with their leisure time. There were some dominoes that were found. A number of dolls were also found at Viewbank. These are mostly ceramic dolls. And it's their limbs, which is always a bit creepy in the archaeological record, when you come across these little tiny ceramic body parts.

These doll limbs actually came from cloth bodies. So obviously, the cloth bodies have degraded in the soil where they've been buried for many years. So we don't have the bodies anymore, but we can find the little limbs that are left behind.

They represent children's play. But also, they were part of teaching girls how to mother. Many of the toys of childhood were associated with learning the required skills of adult life, particularly for girls.

'Mustard Jar - Conservation'

SUSANNA COLLIS: The mustard jar was washed on site using just water and a toothbrush by the archaeologists and students and the rest of the team. Then it's allowed to air dry, and upon arriving at the lab, the conservator would generally assess a whole lot of objects at the same time and determine what needs to be done. So with something like the mustard jar that had a very lovely pattern on it, we want to join that artefact, because it helps in the viewing and understanding of that artefact. What we do, we make sure that we've got all the pieces that we can get, and sometimes further down the track after you've already joined an object, occasionally another piece turns up.

Conservators use a reversible adhesive and the reason why we do that, according to our code of professional ethics, is that whatever we do, we would like it to be able to be undone. So we operate with this sense of reversibility in conservation, and that is so we're not ever impacting upon the integrity of the object to a high degree.

So we'll use what we call Paraloid B-72, and that's a resin and acrylic resin dissolved in a solvent-- so it's carried by the solvent. We paint that along a clean edge, and then we join the pot together. But it can't just be set there and left to cure it. Normally needs some kind of pressure and some kind of support while it's curing, so it stays in place. Because even with what appears to be a very straightforward join, if you don't give that object enough support, it will dry out of alignment and then you have to do it again.

'Mustard Jar - History'

SARAH HAYES: Within the tip, a mustard jar and a little silver mustard spoon were found. The mustard jar is decorated in this multicolored transfer-printed design, which depicts a scene in Venice of gondolas going down the canals.

These mustard and pickle jars were quite common 19th century condiments. It was a common way of decorating-- of attracting purchases. It was like advertising, I suppose. The exotic aspect of it. And the silver mustard spoon, which, I suppose, is associated with it, is a high quality item. It's definitely silver, and very fine and delicate.

And I suppose these items, to some extent, reveal how much people like the Martins at Viewbank were really looking to Britain and Europe for their goods. To a large extent, they got all of the goods that they required, particularly things like dining material, ceramics, and that sort of thing, directly from Britain. And they'd get supplementary exotic little goods from Europe as well.

'Servants' Bells'

SUSANNA COLLIS: The metal servant's bells that came to the conservation lab from Viewbank were treated in a very complex way. There were two types of metals that comprise the bells. One was a ferrite, or iron, material. And the other one was a copper alloy, so brass or bronze.

The iron components of the bells were very degraded. There was a lot of corrosion and spoiling. So part of the iron was falling off in bands and spots. The copper-based elements were fairly intact, and so didn't need as much treatment.

The challenge was that these metal components are combined and attached to one another. And that makes it hard, because we need to have a more interventive approach with the iron than we do with the copper.

So to stabilize the iron corrosion, in this case, the conservator undertook a fairly multi-step approach. The first stage of which is brushing off that iron which is going to come up anyway. So to remove the spoiling corrosion. And that's with just a gentle brush. We're not hammering it, or anything like that.

After we remove the spoiling corrosion, it's then treated chemically, just to remove as much other corroded iron as possible from the surface, until we're left with what we think is a fairly stable base metal. After we reach that point, the iron surface was treated with a coating, a conversion coating, like a rust converter, but a little bit different. And so we'd create a stable outer metal surface, to show to the world, that wouldn't deteriorate further.

After that chemical process, then the process was sealed with a coating for iron, which does involve, actually, a little bit of fish oil. They don't smell anymore. But it complexes with the surface and creates an airtight surface with the metal.

'Toothbrush - Conservation'

SUSANNA COLLIS: I guess bone, it's classed as an inorganic material, but in saying that, it came from an organic source, so it's very fragile. It's likely to warp and crack and split, and therefore, you'll lose the object completely.

So with the bone element, when the objects are excavated, it's unavoidable, but they do dry out. And so the change in the conditions very quickly takes it out of equilibrium, and therefore, the material suffered. So the material can be damaged slightly by excavation, by the process, but that's to be expected.

And 150 years old, they're not doing too badly now. They're very nicely housed and stored in a stable environment. So that's the best that can be done for those.

'Toothbrush - History'

SARAH HAYES:  About 13 or 14 toothbrushes were recovered from Viewbank from within the tip. So they had been thrown away. When you look at one of these toothbrushes, they seem enormous compared to our modern toothbrush, which is very small and very efficient.

But these toothbrushes were quite huge. And they were made from either bone or wood. There's some of both in the Viewbank assemblage. And they had horsehair bristles. These bristles were sewn into the head of the brush with a series of holes, or with little grooves, on the back of the toothbrush.

And archaeologically, what we find is the handle. We never get the bristles. The bristles tend to have decayed. Sometimes you can see still a few little bristles within the holes of the toothbrush, but that's pretty much all we get.

These toothbrushes were considered to be a bit of a prestigious item at the time. It wasn't necessarily something you could afford. Although, they have been noted at archaeological sites of working class people in more urban areas as well. But not in the same sort of numbers. The 13 or 14 at Viewbank indicates that the family were fairly regularly changing their toothbrushes. So they certainly could afford to keep up with their oral hygiene.

'Brick - History'

JEREMY SMITH: The Viewbank house had foundations of stone, but the walls were made of brick. Now, it's very likely that the bricks were made locally, probably even on the site. A lot of the clay around the Yarra in this area is very suitable for making handmade bricks.

The process for making bricks was that the clay would be put into a small wooden mold. The mold would then be left to dry in the sun. The mold would then be turned upside down, and the outline of the brick would be removed, and those bricks would then go off into a kiln for firing.

It was part of that process of removing the clay brick from the wooden mold. You often see the thumbprint impressed into the clay brick. And it's interesting. When you look at Viewbank, you do see that on quite a few of the bricks. And it gives you some sort of tangible, immediate link back to the person that created those bricks, going back now, over 150 years ago.

'Fish Token - History'

SARAH HAYES: One interesting object that came out of the Homestead excavation itself was this small bone fish-shaped object, which, at first glance, appears to have no logical purpose whatsoever. I suppose it's maybe four or five centimeters long. I mean, what would you use that for? And it's sort of this mystery object that I had been aware of throughout my research, and I was flipping through a historic reference about leisure, and I came across this page with an illustration of a pile of these little fish made out of bone, and I was like, that's what I've got in my assemblage.

And when I looked at it and read the information about it, it was actually a gambling token. You would use this fish-shaped thing to place your bet, and so you would have a number of them and put in whichever number you wanted to gamble. And again, this is potentially the sort of object that was easily lost. It was very flat. It would have been easy to drop or lose between floor boards or that sort of thing.

'Marble Fireplace - History'

JEREMY SMITH: Architectural historians inform me that you can tell the function of a room by the colour of the marble in the fireplace. Apparently, the drawing room is recognized as being a feminine room. And the marble used in those types of room tends to be very light in colour. Whereas the dining room is a male dominated room, for some reason. And the colours of the fireplaces there tend to be black, or very dark, marble.

And we did find that at Viewbank. There are two large significant rooms at the front of the house. What we believe to be a dining room and a drawing room. And within the drawing room, the marble that was recovered was a very light gray colour. Whereas the other room was very black. So we suspect that would have been the dining room.