Photo: Jerry Kobylecki

The Bardo Museum, the principal archaeological museum in Tunisia, houses an extraordinary collection of mosaics from ancient Roman sites all over the country. The museum building and the collection are the subject of a collaborative project of the Institut National du Patrimoine and the GCI to assess the physical status of the building and its effects on the mosaics that are, in many cases, actually part of the building. Staff and consultants of the museum and the GCI are working together on a systematic assessment of the building as the dynamic container for the important collections. Simultaneously, they are undertaking a condition reporting effort focusing on a selected representative set of the mosaic pavements. The work is being managed by the GCI's Gaetano Palumbo, Documentation Program Coordinator. A set of photographs has been made of each pavement, and this spring, the team began the process of examination, annotation, and assessment. The collaboration will result in comprehensive collections management recommendations for the museum staff, as well as a clear understanding of the relation of the historic building to the collections it holds.