Conservation around the Millennium (Hungarian National Museum, 2001)

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gypsum). The small fissures that can barely be seen with naked eyes are held together, as far as it is possible, by wax. We tried to reinforce them pouring artificial resin into the fissures of the slightly heated material. It binds to a certain degree, but within the unfavourable circumstances its efficiency is less than it would be desirable. We had to give up the cleaning of the interior after a while since the object would not have endured the vibration caused by the polishing stone of the high-speed rotation machine. The two cheek flaps slid into the close helmet and corroded to its interior. One could be removed and fit back to its original place. The other one could not be removed without the danger of damaging it.

The reconstruction was made withgalvanoplasticg method. Fillings and the missing neck and nose guards were shaped from plasticine. We found out during the shaping of the neck guard and looking for analogues that the method of attaching the neck guard to the helmet is characteristic of the quality of the Intercisa type helmets. In the case of simple iron helmets without coating and ornaments, the neck guard was fixed with a riveted leather strip, while on decorated helmets small buckles were used for the same purpose. (According to László Kocsis’s expert’s opinion one was used by the infantry the other by the cavalry.) Regrettably I could not study many helmets in original, but the attainable publications supported the above observation.30 Accordingly, we also used buckles to join the neck guard to the helmet, (fig. 9).

We made a galvanoplastic copy of the shaped fillings with the help of silicon negative, which was coated with silver and gold according to the original. It is an old experience that any substitute used instead of gold looks fake, this is why we chose this method. Silver coating was necessary to imitate the colour of the worn gilding through which silver faintly appeared. Here I have to mention that the degree of filling caused a serious aesthetic and ethical problem.

The archaeologist suggested that we should reconstruct the ornaments but after reconsidering it a few times we decided on the simplest possible filling.

If we choose a complete ornamentation at one of the fillings, we have to substitute the gilded plates that have peeled off along the fissures as well. We could reconstruct the shapes of the neck and nose guards on the basis of analogues but we can only guess at the ornaments etc. All in all, we found it more ethical to make simplified fillings and reconstruction. The inlays the place and shape of which were certain because of the symmetrical arrangement were only indicated in the filling.

9. Attachment of the reconstructed neck guard with buckles

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