As I described in my previous post, I have had some company in
the lab lately (and I don’t mean the mummies – I’m sorry, but I
don’t consider them to be company, exactly!) – several of our
conservation interns have spent some time up here making
impressions of scarab amulets from our collection. The purpose
of making these impressions is so that our curators can use them
as “dummy” artifacts for teaching students how to read the
inscriptions, as they would in the field. Again, see my previous
post for more info on that. Why have conservation interns work
on this project? Well, it’s a job that requires someone to
examine an artifact, assess its condition, and then prepare and
handle it without risk to the artifact-all skills that are
important in conservation! We have hundreds of these amulets in
our collection, many of them with inscriptions on one, and
sometimes both, sides. To make impressions of these
inscriptions, we’ve chosen to use Sculpey, a polymer clay that,
once shaped to form, is then baked in the