The MARQ Restoration Laboratory and Workshop has restored twenty-two pieces for the exhibition, including 16 from the Vila Joiosa Museum's collection and 6 from its own collection. These include a child burial, a Phoenician tripod-bowl, an Iberian spearhead, a Roman bronze mirror, three Roman perfume bottles, an Islamic iron sickle and other ancient iron and bronze pieces.
One of the most interesting objects restored by MARQ is a child burial inside an amphora, that is, a large vessel for transporting food by sea, which can be dated to the 2nd century AD, and which was found in the necropolis of La Creueta (tomb 64). The interior of the piece was excavated in May 2008 in the archaeology room of the Museum of La Vila Joiosa for a week, which aroused great expectation among the public, who were even able to participate in the less delicate parts of the work.
As expected, the remains of the baby were found inside, often buried in amphorae.
Consuelo Roca, an archaeologist specialising in forensic anthropology and a MARQ technician, has also studied the human remains, concluding that they correspond to an individual of unfinished sex aged around 9 months. This is the first time that this piece will be exhibited to the public after its restoration.
The restoration has dealt separately with the remains of the amphora and those of the baby. To do this, the human remains were first consolidated, separating them into three blocks: head, body and lower limbs. Once they had been removed from the amphora, the back part was consolidated, made up of bones and the package of earth, which at the end of the whole process had to be replaced on the bottom of the amphora. On the other hand, there is the ceramic amphora, which once it has been cleaned, desalted and its fragments joined together, will be re-interred in the same original position.
The aim of the restoration was not to restore the amphora to its original appearance as a container for transporting foodstuffs, but rather to change its use and convert it into a tomb vessel, so that it was not cleaned in depth, but rather to maintain the appearance of a burial place.
