The Texel textile find revisited the testing of cleaning and drying processes for historical wet rags

In 2016, a unique archaeological find of seventeenth-century silk clothing in the form of countless pieces of silk from a shipwreck off Texel, in the Netherlands became world news. In 2017 it was discovered that part of the find had remained damp, and this presented a unique opportunity to conduct research into controlled rinsing and drying methods for this type of material. The aim of the resulting research project was to find a treatment—in as short a time as possible—which would not only save these fragmentary and very degraded silk textiles, but also establish which treatment method would be most suitable to deal with any similar find. Four rinsing agents, rinsing methods and drying techniques were tested on samples of the original material. Of the methods tested, rinsing with a fine and controlled stream of water produced the best cleaning results, but due to its mechanical action it also caused the greatest loss of material. The drying experiments produced no significant differences in fibre condition at a micro-level, with any changes unnoticeable due to the heterogeneous character of the material and the very damaged surface of the fibres. However, freeze-dried samples remained significantly more flexible than those which had been air-dried and were also less distorted and crumpled. Although the research did not provide any definitive ‘best’ combination of treatments, it did offer insight into the risks and advantages of the chosen methods to enable a better-informed treatment choice. As such, final treatment of the damp silks involved their separation, smoothing and careful rinsing on both sides using a controlled stream of water. The entire collection was then freeze-dried and as a result around 60 fragments were successfully conserved.