Itinerant Trajectories

ELLEN CHASE AND SOON KAI POH

Spouted vessel in the form of a bull

Northwest Iran, Iron Age I–II, ca. 1400–800 BCE Earthenware; H × W × D: 22.2 × 13.6 × 35 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Gift of Joan and Frank Mount, S1995.128

The itinerant trajectories of material items are shaped by numerous actors, including conservators in the present day who are commonly associated with the physical preservation of materials, working collaboratively with museum research scientists, curators, and scholars, as well as, not least, those who hold cultural knowledge and whose expertise may or may not yet be formally recognized.

For conservators, the journey of an item is embedded within its material presence; marks, scars, repairs, and other interventions describe the actions of others who have contributed to its present state. The process of conservation involves the synthesis of material evidence and its placement in time, not just to understand an item’s past, but to envision its future preservation. Anthropologists have described the trajectories of material items in terms of their lives, biographies, or itineraries,1 but such notions are intuitively familiar to conservators, whose actions are fundamentally additive to an item’s journey, both materially and in time.

This essay traces the journey of an ancient Near Eastern bull-shaped vessel in the Sackler Gallery’s collection from the conservators’ perspective (see also fig. 1). The vessel was acquired by the gallery in 1995 and is associated with the archaeological site of Marlik, which lies in the valley of Gohar Rud, in the Gilan province in northwestern Iran.2 Composed of more than fifty tombs, the site was first excavated in 1961 by the late Ezat Negahban, uncovering a literal wealth of gold, bronze, and ceramic funerary artifacts, including vessels in the form of stags and bulls. Often considered the pioneer of modern Iranian archaeology, Negahban directed the first scientific excavations in Iran at Marlik. His publications spurred great interest in these zoomorphic vessels in the 1960s.3 These discoveries from Marlik became a part of Iranian national identity, appearing on Iranian banknotes from the period.4 Amid this collecting fervor, the vessel was purchased by ceramics collectors Frank and Joan Mount in 1966, who later presented it to the gallery as part of their gift of Ancient Near Eastern ceramics.5

Although at first glance the vessel seemed to be whole, the conservator who examined the vessel at the time of its acquisition noted that its surface appeared to be heavily