Le remontage des barques gallo-romaines de Pommeroeul (Belgique): Étape nécessaire de l'étude archéologique?

The discovery of the Pommeroeuls boats during a salvage excavation in 1975 was of greatest importance for Belgian Archeology. From the beginning, the deadline granted to the excavation and the lack of knowledge ofthis type of flat-bottomed craft did not allow for a thorough study, but furthermore, never had such quantifies of waterlogged wood been found and seeing that, it was also a challenge to the restorer to have to treat them for conservation. The wood was conserved under water, in temporary tanks, from 1975 to 1979; the damage done from one broken tank as resuit shows well the risks involved in this kind ο f solution. It neverless enabled a treatment tank to be made and to conserve the wood by impregnation with polyethylene glycol 4000 between 1979 and 1982. At that stage, in principle, the different pieces, retrieved fragments of dugout parts or plank, should no longer be a problem even if they apparently required a stable climate (T° and R. H.). However, seeing the effort made both in excavation and the treatment, it was logical to think about presenting the boats to the public and therefore to raise them for exhibition in a museum, the construction ofwhich was only completed in 1991. Since that date, two of the three boats are presently being reassembled, and this should be achieved before the end of 1995 for the dugout (10 m x 1 m) and within three or four years for the barge (14 m x 3 m). The different cleaning, sticking and restoring deformations operations were taken advantage of in order to study the building and assembly details that the fragility of the pieces before treatment did not allow. In the same way, the deadline of the work enabled necessary dendrochronological readings to be made at leisure. Unfortunately, the plans on a scale of 1/10 were not enough to check the déformations subsequent to the excavation, even if the possible cracks appearing both before and after the treatment plead in favour of reassembling the whole boat which would block the wooden pieces in a position natural to them. Throughout the reassembling opération, it has been revealed absolutely necessary for a constant dialogue between the restorer and the archeologist in view ofthe numerous choices that the déformation ofthe pièces impose. A discussion in more depth of the final form should take place when reassembled.