Iconnect Interview - Issue 7 (Summer 2024)

What sparked your interest in archaeology and conservation?

I got really excited about the ancient world when I was a cultural exchange student. I was 18 and it was the first time I had left America. I stayed with a family in Turkey and we visited a Byzantine fortress and museum on the Black Sea coast. I had always done arts and crafts and remember standing in front of a display case, looking at some simple ceramics and being struck by the idea that ancient hands – belonging to someone just like me – had made these objects.

The next summer I went to Italy to do an art history course, where I met someone who was studying conservation. I’d never heard about the profession before then, but it was a real lightbulb moment – I knew it was exactly what I wanted to do.

While completing my art degree at the University of Colorado, I got an internship at the Rocky Mountain Regional Conservation Centre to gain some conservation experience. My main supervisor had trained at the Institute of Archaeology (University of London, now UCL) and when I looked at the different courses available, I realised that’s where I wanted to study next.

Tell us about your early career after graduating from UCL…

My dissertation had focused on tool marks on a collection of Peruvian gold and just as I was graduating, the American Museum of Natural History was looking for a metal conservator. I was lucky enough to get the job, so I headed back to the States and spent an amazing year in New York.

Around the same time, my boyfriend and I decided we would get married. We met while we were both studying archaeology in London and as he specialises in ancient woodworking and boats – which are generally found along riverbanks – we settled in England.

I got a position at the Museum of London and worked there for 10 years before taking voluntary redundancy in 1997 to go freelance. It was really hard to leave but by then we had two kids and were living in North Kent in a house with a garden, and the commuting and childcare costs eventually got the better of me.

How did you find the transition, going from employed to self-employed?

It was a case of ‘needs must’, if I wanted to balance my work life with being a mom and picking the kids up from school. I like wearing the hat of an organisation and being part of a team, working alongside other conservators, archaeologists, curators and scientists. But on the plus side, working for two big museums and making lots of connections during my early career gave me a really strong foundation to do independent work.

Serendipity struck again and I was invited by another conservator to rent space at The Historic Dockyard Chatham. It was the first time I had come across a conservation lab with a window in it, so that visitors could watch what we were doing. So, I set up my microscope and started trading under my own name as an archaeological conservator.

Around the same time, I discovered a bronze foundry, just across from the dockyard conservation lab. I suggested doing some projects together, but they were closing down. They asked if I’d like to take it over and alongside Andrew Lacey (an archaeometallurgist and bronze founder/artist), that’s what I did. AMTeC was born, which stands for Ancient Materials Technology and Conservation. It originally started life as a cooperative, but today it’s a Community Interest Company (CIC) called AMTeC Heritage Science, focusing on the investigation, care, reproduction and presentation of archaeological artefacts, art and architecture.

I ended up running my conservation lab from the bronze foundry, where Andrew and I also carried out research and experimental work and ran workshops on things like metalworking and how to make lost-wax bronze castings. Some of the workshops were aimed at people in our field, but we also ran sessions for the public and Medway Children’s University.

Today, AMTeC is co-directed with Dr Luciana Carvalho, who initially came to me as an intern from UCL and went on to gain her PhD at University of Oxford. I send her curious samples of corrosion or strange deposits on objects and she and her Oxford ‘omics’ colleagues discover amazing things! We both love telling stories that spring from taking a close look at materials, scientific discoveries and connecting people to their heritage.

Has the work changed much, over the years?

Most of my career has been spent working with freshly excavated finds but in more recent years, there has been less and less. The funding is so tight that archaeologists often cut out the more specialist work. And with lots of housing development work now going to whoever puts in the lowest tender for the job, the high standards that were put in place for site work in the 80s and 90s are just not being met, to help keep the cost down. It’s a huge shame. I do feel like the 80s was a golden age for conservation. Back then, if you found an Anglo-Saxon cemetery, every artefact would have been conserved and found a home in a museum, which rarely happens nowadays.

How did you get involved in television work?

My husband worked as a wood specialist for Time Team from the very first series, back in 1993. I’d go along with him when I was on maternity leave from the museum or working freelance and I’d get chatting to different people on the production team. They liked my enthusiasm and that’s when I started to gain airtime on programmes like Time Team and Digging for Britain, as well as some documentary work.

Tell us about CSI: Sittingbourne…

In 2009, an Anglo-Saxon cemetery with 229 graves and around 2,500 archaeological artefacts was discovered in my local town. From an archaeology and conservation perspective, this was a really exciting find, as organic materials in Anglo-Saxon graves often get preserved if they’re in direct contact with a metal object when it corrodes. This can tell us so much about the person buried with the metal object, but it’s a very time-consuming and expensive process.

The archaeologist working for Canterbury Archaeological Trust approached me and asked if I would consider working with volunteers to help conserve some of the objects. As I love working with people, I was up for the challenge but rather than keep the work behind closed doors, I thought, why not do it from a pop-up in the high street?

I mentioned the idea to a friend who volunteers at a local museum and before long, I was working in partnership with Sittingbourne Heritage Museum and Canterbury Archaeological Trust, under the AMTeC banner. We then entered talks with Tesco, who offered us two empty units in the local shopping centre they owned. In one unit, which was overseen by the museum, we displayed objects from the cemetery and provided information about the site. In the other unit, I set up my conservation lab, where I managed a team of interns and volunteers.

I named the lab CSI: Sittingbourne, with CSI standing for Conservation Science Investigations rather than Crime Scene Investigations. It seemed fitting, as what we do as conservators is very similar to forensic science, especially when you’re dealing with ancient death and trying to tell the story of that person’s life. Calling it CSI was also a good hook when people visiting the shopping centre were trying to figure out what the heck we were doing! I would say: “Do you ever watch CSI on television? Well, in here, we’re doing the same thing.”

Marie Le Saux, who had just completed an HLF funded Icon internship, was working with me at the time and we created the conservation lab together and trained the first batch of volunteers. Our original funding was for six months, but we managed to stretch it out for another two years with some additional funding. It was a real success, with our volunteers putting in around 5,000 hours, but eventually the money dried up, even though there’s still half the cemetery to conserve. The shopping centre now has a new owner but I’ve never been asked to leave and I’ve started looking at different ways to raise money and new models of working. In the meantime, I still run community-based conservation projects and workshops in the space, whenever I get some funding.

What are some of the success stories to have come from AMTeC and CSI: Sittingbourne?

I’m very proud that two of my volunteers at CSI Sittingbourne went on to train as conservators. But I think learning transferable skills and the wellbeing benefits of taking part in projects like this are also important.

In its heyday, there would be up to four different volunteers working in the CSI lab at any given time. Friendships were made and intergenerational skills were shared, as we’d have young and old volunteers working at the same table. One lady even wrote me an open letter about how volunteering at the lab had saved her life, as she’d suffered various relationship and health problems and it gave her a sense of purpose. It’s so humbling.

I also love dealing with difficult visitors – the ones that start off a little challenging and make everyone else in the lab hide behind their microscopes! I’ve talked to a group of schoolkids about how farts contain sulphur, which can corrode metal objects, and to young travellers about the similarities between Anglo-Saxon burial rituals and their own. I think being able to engage with people like this and make them take an interest in what you’re doing is a fun part of the job.

What aspect of your work do you find challenging?

I’m dyslexic, so I sometimes struggle articulating the value of what we do to policymakers and when I’m writing grant applications, which are both key for sustainability. To be honest, these weren’t skills I thought I would need when I entered the profession back in the 80s. I’ve always wanted to be hands-on and I’m lucky enough that 40 years later, I’m still working at the bench. But to do the projects I want to do, I rely on funding. For me, this either means improving my skills in this area or reaching out to kind champions who can help me with this, which I’ve done in the past.

What’s been your most exciting discovery or project?

There are too many to choose from! A few years ago, I got to work with the relics of St Eanswythe, the oldest known saint to have been discovered in England, in a church in Kent. Click here to watch a video!

^{Above: Dana Goodburn-Brown ACR working with relics of St Eanswythe at a church in Folkestone, Kent. Picture: Mark Hourahane, Diocese of Canterbury. PA wire.}

I’ve also done some really fun collaborative work with other creatives recently, including filling a bright green coffin with my favourite Roman artefacts, as part of a project to help people talk about death and dying.

In 2022, I managed to secure funding to bring together a small team to create a digital archive of the metal artefacts found when the HS1 railway line (Channel Tunnel) was constructed – which filled 800 boxes!

I’m now hoping to get funding to process the bulk of the archive and take our Tru Vue-awarded mobile museum case on trains, to show off some of these finds.

And just recently, my colleague Dr Emma Payne and I moved a section of an Elizabethan Wall for Canterbury Museums and Galleries.

What makes you tick, inside and outside of work?

At work, I’m at my happiest when I discover something exciting down a microscope or have a random discussion with someone that really rocks my boat. Otherwise, it’s sharing time with family and friends, live music and crochet – I love making things.