11 CONCLUSIONS

The research presented here was in large part made possible by the extensive photodocumentation, field notebooks, and records created by Reisner. Living institutional memory, former reports, and the new museumwide database, which has prompted the need to record the museum's holdings in their entirety, have also been invaluable in piecing together the history of the treatment of the MFA's Egyptian Collection. This research also confirms the vital importance of documenting a collection's history, its archival materials, and the analysis of previous conservation methods and materials. We have furthermore drawn on influential early publications by Petrie, Lucas, and Rathgen, which discuss what could be considered standard procedures for the time and undoubtedly reflect what was done to some of the MFA objects before they came to Boston.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For providing advice, memories, resources, and support, thanks are due to Arthur Beale, Lawrence Berman, Emma Copley, Nicole Crawford, Michele Derrick, Denise Doxey, Rita Freed, Joyce Haynes, Alice Klein, Jean-Louis Lachevre, Peter Der Manuelian (who also generously supplied many of the images published here), Yvonne Markowitz, and Richard Newman.

Scientific analyses referred to in this article, unless otherwise noted, were performed by the MFA's Scientific Research Department by Richard Newman and Michele Derrick, and are not published.