Photo: Cynthia Godlewski

During the last two weeks of April 1999, fieldwork took place in Caesarea, Israel, as part of a collaborative project on the conservation of mosaics in situ undertaken by the GCI and the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).

One of the components of the project's research program is a three-year mosaic comparative exposure test. During the April campaign, the project team continued to develop plans for this test, which will be implemented in the fall of this year. The objective of the test is to document, understand, and quantify the impact of maintenance following selected conservation interventions on the mitigation of mosaic deterioration.

During the April mission, the team finalized several of the test implementation components, as well as the monitoring and maintenance plan. The mission included a training session for IAA and Israel National Parks staff on digital graphic documentation methodology, necessary to support the test needs for regular and systematic recording of changes in the mosaics' condition. As part of the training practice, graphic conditions recording was carried out on one of the test mosaics.