William Andrew Oddy

William Andrew Oddy, OBE, FSA DSc Hon FRNS (born 6 January 1942) is a former Keeper of Conservation at the British Museum, notable for his publications on artefact conservation and numismatics, and for the development of the Oddy test. In 1996 he was awarded the Forbes Prize "for outstanding work in the field of conservation" by the International Institute for Conservation, and gave the attendant Forbes Lecture that year in Copenhagen. [1] He retired in 2002 and was appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire the same year. [2]

Childhood: 1942-1961

William Andrew Oddy was born on 6 January 1942 in the city of Bradford and spent his childhood in the nearby township of Baildon. He was the first son of William Tingle Oddy, then serving in the Auxiliary Fire Service for the duration of World War II, and Hilda Florence Oddy (née Dalby). He attended Sandal Primary School in Baildon 1946-1952 (where his mother had taught from her graduation in 1925 until her marriage in 1934). His secondary education was spent at Bradford Grammar School 1952- 1961. It was during these years that he developed an interest in archaeology after having visited the excavations at Meare Lake Village in Somerset that were being directed by an elderly Harold St George Gray (1872-1963). When in the sixth form he went with parties from Bradford Grammar School on several occasions to excavate in York under the direction of George Wilmot of the Yorkshire Museum. He also took an interest in Mason's marks on mediaeval buildings and this led to his first publications.[3][4][5][6][7] In the summer of 1960, Andrew Oddy participated in the King Hussein Youth Camp in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Two weeks were spent visiting religious and archaeological sites and this experience helped to cement an interest in archaeology.[8]

University

In October 1961, Andrew Oddy went up to New College Oxford to read chemistry. Of 110 freshman at new College that year, only 10 were from grammar schools and four of those were reading chemistry! During those years the summers were spent on archaeology: excavating at the Roman town of Aldborough for the Ministry of Works and surveying in East Yorkshire and Cumberland with the York office of the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments under the supervision of Herman Ramm and David Dymond. Chemistry at Oxford is a four-year course and the fourth year consists of research, having taken finals at the end of year three. Andrew Oddy's dissertation was entitled The Sintering of Some Oxide Catalysts. He was awarded a BA at the end of year three in 1964 and a BSc following the submission of the dissertation in 1965. Andrew Oddy was awarded an MA in 1969 and a DSc in 1993. He became a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths and a Freeman of the City of London in 1986. He has not yet driven a flock of sheep over London Bridge!

Career


On graduating in 1965, Andrew Oddy joined the Research Department of the Agricultural Division of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) at Billingham in County Durham as a junior research scientist but resigned September 1966 to take up a post as a scientific officer at the Research Laboratory in the British Museum. His role was to research methods and materials for the conservation of antiquities and during this period projects included cleaning the Elgin Marbles, cleaning limestone sculptures, and preserving waterlogged wood. In 1968 was given the role of overseeing the conservation of the finds from the famous Sutton Hoo ship burial, excavated in 1939, and also the scientific examination of the finds from the burial in anticipation of full publication. He was promoted to Senior Scientific Officer in June 1969 and Principal Scientific Officer in December 1974.

In 1975, as a result of a re-organisation within the British Museum, Andrew Oddy was given the management of metallurgy, x-ray diffraction and radiography and became responsible for coordinating the British Museum's forensic examination of objects submitted for acquisition. During this period research projects included the manufacture of gold wire in antiquity, the assaying gold in antiquity, the analysis of gold coins by Archimedes method, and the composition of niello inlay in antiquity.

In 1981 Andrew Oddy was appointed Head of Conservation and then elevated to Keeper of Conservation in 1985. In later years his research focused on the history and philosophy of conservation. He retired on his 60th birthday in 2002.

Research Projects


Marble sculpture


In the early 1960s, the British Museum began extensive programme of cleaning its collection of classical marble sculptures by the application of a solvent to remove atmospheric grease and a mud-pack to suck out dirt from the porous surface. The mud-pack consisted of a natural clay-like material called Sepiolite, and the procedure was known as the Sepiolite Method.[9] By 1966 much of the reserve collection of marbles had been cleaned and only the Elgin Marbles remained. These were, however, a sensitive issue because of the cleaning scandal in the late 1930s when craftsmen had over enthusiastically scraped at natural deposits on some of the surfaces with copper tools.[10][11] When the scandal broke it led to the retirement of the keeper of the Greek and Roman Department (on medical grounds!) and the resignation of an Assistant Keeper who chose to leave the Museum rather than lose seniority. Memories of this incident were still remarkably fresh in 1966 and the masons' assistants who had been doing the routine cleaning thus far were reluctant to continue with the Elgin Marbles. Initial cleaning was carried out by Andrew Oddy and a senior conservator called Hannah Lane who demonstrated that the sepiolite method did not adversely affect the marble. What it did do was to leave the surface looking rather 'milky' as a result of the removal of dirt from the surface. It was thus decided to apply a very dilute solution of a water-soluble polyethylene glycol wax.[12] Because it is water-soluble, it is easily removed, but it did not stop a conservation scientist in Greece alleging that the British Museum had impregnated the Elgin Marbles with plastic!

Limestone Sculptures


At the same time that the classical marble sculpture was being cleaned to remove the dirt deposited by the polluted air of London over many many years, a programme was started to clean Egyptian limestone sculptures for the same reason. In other museums this had been successfully carried out by prolonged soaking in water and this method was adopted at the British Museum. However after a few sculptures had been successfully cleaned in this way, the surface of one sculpture started to exfoliate within a very short time after immersion. The washing program was stopped and the sculptures examined to try and determine why the treatment had failed in one case but been successful in others. Analysis quickly established that the surface of the limestone had become partly converted to gypsum (calcium sulphate) by reaction of air pollution with the natural calcite (calcium carbonate). The next question was to determine why the surface of some such stones were unstable when immersed in water and others not.

At this point it was realised that the stone whose surface had flaked had come from Thebes while those sculptures that had been washed successfully had come from Memphis. Analysis showed that the Theban limestone contained about 10% of acid insoluble matter - mainly quartz and clay minerals - and that the Memphis limestone was relatively pure calcium carbonate (>99%). Further testing showed that not only was the purity of the stone important, but also the presence of soluble salts - mainly sodium chloride.

The result of this research programme was that following analysis of a sample of the sculpture for acid insoluble residue and percentage of soluble chloride it was possible to predict whether it would be safe to wash the sculpture.[13]

Waterlogged Wood

In the autumn of 1970, dredging operations in a drainage channel on the Graveney marshes on the north coast of Kent revealed the remains of a small ship, the wood of which was completely waterlogged.[14][15] The National Maritime Museum decided to recover[16][17] and conserve the remains of this early medieval boat and asked the Research Laboratory of the British Museum for assistance.[18] This led to a programme of research into the conservation of waterlogged wood.[19][20][21] The result was that the method chosen was the replacement of the water inside the wood with a watersoluble polyethylene glycol wax by soaking in tanks of the wax for many months. Tanks were built at the National maritime Museum to conserve the boat.[22]

Corrrosion of Objects in Museums

It had long been known that some objects deteriorate when in storage or on display in museums. This is especially true of silver, copper/bronze and lead. It was thus no surprise when the director of the Wallace Collection sought the help of the British Museum Research Laboratory in 1972 to investigate the tarnishing of gold snuff boxes after they had been on display for only a few months. Tarnish (silver sulphide) was spreading from the settings of precious stones. Testing of the materials of which the showcase were made revealed that the main structural timber was an African pseudo-mahogany and that this caused silver to tarnish very quickly. Fresh samples of this timber were inert and it was assumed that the timber of the showcase had been treated with a chemical either as a fire retardant or insect repellent.[23][24]

The method of testing materials to be used in the construction of storage units or display cases for metal objects eventually became standardised and known as the 'Oddy Test'. It is widely used in museums around the world.[25]

The Sutton Hoo Anglo-Saxon Ship Burial


In progress.

Forensic Examination of Antiquities

One of the problems increasingly facing Museum during the 20th century was the appearance of forged antiquities on the art market. Even before the advent of widespread forging, museums had to contend with antiquities that had been expertly 'restored' to make them more attractive. These restorations were often 'fanciful' and not true to the original. At the British Museum, the recruitment of scientists to research conservation processes - the first being Dr Harold Plenderleith MC OBE FBA (1898-1997) - opened up the possibility of using this in-house scientific expertise to investigate the authenticity of antiquities. Starting in the 1930s, Plenderleith and his successors increasingly employed chemical analysis, x-ray diffraction, X radiography, microscopy, and metallurgical techniques to try and show that all the physical aspects of an object being investigated were consistent with its supposed age. For example, finding a copper nitrate 'corrosion product' on the surface of a bronze would condemn it as almost certainly modern. Other examples would be the identification of modern hard soldering products that had been used to assemble jewellery or the presence of corrosion products which had been ground up and stuck onto the surface of a recently-made object. On the whole the British Museum has not published the details of the forensic work on antiquities for obvious reasons.[26][27]

Gold wire in antiquity


Wire is made nowadays by drawing a rod of metal through a series of holes of ever-decreasing size (in a block of metal known as a die) until the desired diameter is achieved. This method was not known until about the sixth century A.D. Before then, various methods were used involving hammering on an anvil or twisting a fine strip of metal to give a hollow wire like a miniature drinking straw. Determining the techniques used largely require the use of a microscope and depend on the ancient wire having a well-preserved surface. The ready corrosion of iron, bronze and silver means that wires made of these materials are difficult to investigate. Hence the study of Gold wire in Antiquity is largely confined to the examination of wire in gold jewellery.[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35]

Assaying gold alloys in antiquity


In progress

Archimedes' method for the analysis of gold alloys


In progress

Niello in antiquity

In progress

Gilding silver and bronze in antiquity

In progress

History of conservation


In progress

The philosophy of conservation


In progress


Publications

Bibliography


  1. ↑ Oddy, A, The Forbes Prize Lecture 1996, Bulletin of IIC (no.5, October 1996)pp.1-5
  2. ↑ The London Gazette 15 June 2002, supplement 56595, p.12
  3. ↑ Archaeology Group Bulletin (of Bradford City Art Gallery and Museums) 5 (11) (Nov.1960) pp.82-3
  4. ↑ idem, 9 (6) (June 1964) p.4
  5. ↑ idem, 11 (1) (Jan 1966) p.3
  6. ↑ idem, 11 (5) (May 1966) p.38
  7. ↑ idem, 11 (11) (Nov.1966) p.100
  8. ↑ Oddy, W A and Pitts, M J, Guests of King Hussein, The Bradfordian, no.258 (December 1960) pp.10-11
  9. ↑ Hempel, K F B, Notes on the Conservation of Sculpture, Stone, Marble and Terracotta, Studies in Conservation 12 (1968) 34-44
  10. ↑ Jenkins, I, Sir, They are Scrubbing the Elgin marbles, Minerva 10 (6) (1999) 43-45
  11. ↑ Jenkins, I, What Happened to the Sculptures of the Parthenon in the 1930s?, Minerva 11 (2) (2000) 9-15
  12. ↑ Oddy, A, The Conservation of Marble Sculptures in the British Museum before 1975, Studies in Conservation 47 (2002) 145-154
  13. ↑ Oddy, W A, Hughes, M J, and Baker, S, The washing of Limestone Sculptures from Egypt and the Middle East, Revue Lithoclastia 2 (1976) 3-10.
  14. ↑ Greenhill, B, The Graveney Boat, Antiquity 45 (1971) 41-2
  15. ↑ Evans, A C, and Fenwick, V H, The Graveney Boat, Antiquity 45 (1971) 89-96
  16. ↑ Oddy, W A and Van Geersdaele, P C, The Recovery of the Graveney Boat, Studies in Conservation 17 (1972) 30-38
  17. ↑ Oddy, W A, Packing and Transporting the Graveney Boat, The International Journal of nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration 1 (1972) 175-177
  18. ↑ Oddy, W A, The Graveney Boat - Problems of Conservation, in Three Major Ancient Boat Finds in Britain, National Maritime Museum, London, 1972, pp.19-24
  19. ↑ McKerrell, H and Oddy, A, The Conservation of Waterlogged Wood using Dewatering Fluids, Museums Journal 71 (4) (1972) 165-167
  20. ↑ Oddy, W A, Comparison of Different Methods of Treating Waterlogged Wood as Revealed by Stereoscan Examination and Thoughts on the Future of the Conservation of waterlogged Boats, in Problems of the Conservation of Waterlogged Wood (ed. W A Oddy), Maritime Monographs and Reports 16, National maritime Museum, London, 1975, pp.45-49
  21. ↑ Oddy, A, Wet Wood: Techniques Employed in the Conservation of waterlogged Wood, Yachting World 125 (1973) 119-120
  22. ↑ Oddy, W A, Blackshaw, S and Gregson, C, Conservation of the Waterlogged Wooden Hull, in The Graveney Boat: A Tenth Century Find from Kent (ed. V Fenwick), National Maritime Museum, London, 1978, pp.321-330
  23. ↑ Oddy, W A, An Unsuspected Danger in Disply, Museums Journal 73 (1) (1973) 27-8
  24. ↑ Oddy, W A, The Corrosion of Metals on Display, in Conservation in Archaeology and the Applied Arts, International Institute for conservation, London, 1975, pp.235-237.
  25. ↑ Lee, L R and Thickett, D, Selection of Materials for the Storage or Display of Museum Objects, British Museum Occasional Paper no.111, London, 1996
  26. ↑ Oddy, W A, Is it a fake? Spectroscopy in the authentication of metallic antiquities, European Spectroscopy News no.34 (1981) 31-34
  27. ↑ Oddy, W A, Macroscopy in Archaeology - the microscope as an extension of the eye, in Microscopy in Archaeological Conservation (eds. M Corfield and K Foley) United Kingdom Institute for Conservation Occasional paper no. 2 (1982) 4-6
  28. ↑ Oddy, A, The Production of Gold Wire in Antiquity: hand-making methods before the introduction of the draw-plate, Gold Bulletin 10 (3) (1977) 79-87
  29. ↑ Oddy, W A , Hand-made wire in Antiquity: a correction, MASCA Journal 1 (2) (1979) 44-45
  30. ↑ Oddy, W A, Swaged wire from the Bronze Age? MASCA Journal 1 (4) (1980) 110-111
  31. ↑ Oddy, A, Gold Wire in Antiquity, Aurum 5 (1981) 8-12
  32. ↑ Oddy, W A, Gold Wire on the Thetford Jewellery and the Technology of Wire Production in Roman Times, in C Johns and T Potter, The Thetford Treasure: Roman Silver and Jewellery, British Museum, London, 1983 pp.62-64
  33. ↑ Oddy, W A, Ancient Jewellery as a Source of Technological Information - a study of Techniques for Making Wire, in Investigation of Museum Objects and Materials Used in Conservation-Restoration (Fourth International Restorer Seminar, Volume 2, Veszprem, Hungary, 2-10 July 1983), Budapest, 1984, pp.241-249
  34. ↑ Oddy, W A, Does 'Strip-Drawn' Wire Exist from Antiquity?, MASCA Journal 4 (4) (1987) 175-177
  35. ↑ Swaddling, J, Oddy, A, and Meeks, N, Etruscan and other Gold Wire from Italy, Jewellery Studies 5 (1992) 7-21
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