The International Committee for the Conservation of Mosaics (ICCM) will hold its ninth triennial conference November 29–December 3, 2005, in Hammamet, Tunisia. The conference—entitled ''Lessons Learned: Reflecting on the Theory and Practice of Mosaic Conservation"—is being coorganized by the Getty Conservation Institute and the Institut National du Patrimoine of Tunisia.

Aimed at professionals in the conservation of ancient mosaics, as well as at art historians and archaeologists of the Roman world, the conference will have a particular focus on conservation issues in the Arab world, a region rich in Roman mosaics.

The conference will encompass all aspects of mosaic conservation—training; in situ conservation; interventions such as sheltering, treatments, reburial, and lifting and relaying; documentation; presentation; maintenance; and site management. The four-day program will include over 50 papers and posters that reflect on theory, practice, and decision-making processes, and how these have evolved over the last 30 years. Case studies—which examine rationale, discuss the methodology or evaluation results of past projects, or illustrate how future evaluation is incorporated into project planning—will also be presented.

The official conference languages are French and English. An Arabic translation of the abstracts will be made available by ICCROM. Tours of Tunisian mosaic sites will be included in the conference program. A postconference tour will be offered to sites and museums with mosaics in and around Tripoli, Libya.

Formed in 1977 under the auspices of ICCROM, the ICCM is the only international organization devoted to mosaic conservation. Its triennial conference provides the principal forum for professionals in this field of conservation, and the published proceedings are an essential source of information about mosaic conservation.