completed brooch

There were only a few brooches discovered at The Meads.  The saucer brooch featured in an earlier post about conserved objects, and pictured above, has now been completed.  The brooch was carefully mechanically cleaned using a scalpel to remove the bulk of the surface soil.  The remainder was cleaned by swabbing with a paste of IMS and marble flour.  The results are impressive and give us a much clearer  idea of the design and manufacture of the object.  Unfortunately, one of the garnets became detached but this is very common and can be easily rectified.