From Threshold to Museum: Conserving a Rare Neolithic Footprint Feature

Located in Bursa Province, the site of Barcın Höyük yielded a residential complex of rectangular rooms dating to the seventh millennium BCE. Just inside the threshold of one of the dwellings dating to 6400 BCE, the 2014 excavations discovered a set of two human footprints. The preservation of such features is rare in archaeological contexts yet given the unusual sequence of burning and plastering episodes, the imprints survived the ensuing 8400 years practically unharmed. After presenting background on the Neolithic context of the footprints, the paper discusses the archaeological and symbolic aspects of footprints placed in thresholds in Anatolia and the Near East. While the discovery of a horned cattle cranium directly beneath the footprint adds to the symbolic nature of the find at Barcın Höyük, it nonetheless complicated the process of lifting the block unharmed. The main focus of the paper is the planning, lifting, conservation and restoration phases that enabled the feature to be removed as a complete block, which was eventually transported intact and delivered to the İznik Museum. Attention is given to the conservation and restoration treatments and techniques as well as the methods and materials used when the feature/block was supported, lifted carried, stored and installed.