The Domenico Ridola Archaeological Museum, established in 1911, is, next to the museum in Lanfranchi Palace, one of the two branches of the Matera National Museum. It is located in the historical centre of the city, inside the former convent of Santa Chiara and it is divided into various sections, among which, of particular interest for this project, those of the funerary contexts of the Metal Age and Magna Graecia. The conservation work focused, in particular, on the artefacts of the Rizzon Collection for which, as part of the project, funding was also provided for a new exhibition.
Many conservation and restoration activities took place within the museum, both in view of the relocation of the Rizzon Collection in the refurbished exhibition space, and as necessary interventions for a safer display of the objects. In particular:
1. conservation filing of ceramic artefacts, exhibited in the halls, or kept in storage;
2. non-routine maintenance and restoration of ceramic artefacts;
3. moving and handling of the Rizzon Collection’s vases and other stone artefacts for positioning and display in the new exhibition space;
4. environmental monitoring on the occasion of the Blind Sensorium temporary exhibition.
Similarly to what was carried out for the collections of the Metapontum Archaeological Museum, the objects displayed in the halls or in the depots were subjected to conservation filing.
It was considered essential to indicate whether the artefact is composed of several fragments, as is the case in the vast majority of cases, and to give a rating (value from 1 to 3) on the number of fragments and the extent of gaps/defects, as well as to indicate whether joints between fragments are filled and gaps integrated or not.
The filing activity was also aimed at providing artefact data for the experiments that were conducted by the Politecnico di Milano and 3DResearch. The metric characteristics were noted in the cards: height (height at the rim, maximum height if different from the previous one, internal height); diameter (maximum diameter, that at the rim and that at the base); average thickness; and the weight of the artefact.
Nearly 100 artefacts, craters, amphorae, pelike, hydria and hoinocoe, exhibited in the showcases or stored in the various repositories, have been catalogued.

Extraordinary maintenance and restoration of vases

Conservation work on vases from the Rizzon Collection, a section of the Ridola Museum exhibition, revealed the need for extraordinary maintenance work on three large vases. Subsequently, four more vases, part of the same Rizzon Collection and already reassembled in the past, underwent new restoration work. On the vases, depolymerisation of the adhesive and the consequent partial failure of the old adhesives were found. In the process, particular attention was also paid to the treatment of the previous additions, which were characterised by surface irregularities and discolouration.

Also as part of the project, all 94 fictile vases, as well as some stone artefacts of large size and weight, were moved and repositioned in the refurbished Rizzon Collection exhibition.

The temporary exhibition Blind Sensorium – The Paradox of the Anthropocene

Opened on 6th September 2019 and extended until 8th March 2020, the exhibition Blind Sensorium. The Paradox of the Anthropocene was one of the four major exhibitions scheduled for Matera, European Capital of Culture in 2019.

The exhibition was set up in two venues, one of which was in Depot 1 of the Domenico Ridola National Archaeological Museum, a basement room on two levels thanks to a walk-in mezzanine.

On the shelves of the depot, archaeological finds were part of the artistic research initiated by Milanese artist Armin Linke in 2013, commissioned by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin and then developed in collaboration with international art and science institutions.

Alongside fossils and bronze, iron and ceramic artefacts, there were photographic reproductions, ancient and modern books, drawings, paintings, satellite and geological maps, films and electronic devices.

In order to control the exhibition conditions of the works on display and the archaeological artefacts kept in storage, monitoring was carried out following the Environmental Data Sheet monitoring protocol, developed for the study of venues used for the permanent and temporary conservation and display of works. During the months of September 2019 to March 2020, from the setting up of the exhibition to its closure, the temperature and relative humidity trends were monitored.

The monitoring not only allowed constant control of the environmental conditions of the exhibition, in order to guarantee the best conservation conditions for the works on display, but also constituted an initial verification of the microclimatic conditions of the museum’s depots: the data collected are, in fact, an initial documentation of the conditions of the depots during the autumn and winter seasons. This data can be used as a reference for subsequent checks to study the changing conditions of conservation of the works in depots caused by climate change.