Conservation:

During the summer of 2004, 7 students from the Conservation & Restoration school in Venice, Italy arrived at the site to work on conservation of the Bathhouse, and stayed for a period of approximately 2 months. They had completed 2 years of a 3 year program & were getting practical field experience under the guidance of Mark Avrami of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The pictures show them working on the walls of the Bathhouse. They were using a limestone mixture which is somewhat similar to that originally used to construct the walls and which will allow future conservation or restoration to be accomplished. Note the care and professionalism of the work, using delicate tools which allowed them to achieve a high level of quality. The repair of the bathhouse walls took about 3 weeks, after which time they began on conservation of the ceramics, plaster walls and mosaics. The 6 students worked in pairs, rotating among these three areas every week or two to gain experience in each aspect of conservation.