Unconventional Cultural Heritage - Conservation of Brateiu Cart from Astra Museum

Abstract

The paper refers to the conservation-restoration of an interesting and certainly less conventional artifact from the collections of Astra Museum. This was one of the objects restored by a team of 13 volunteers from the Faculty of Wood Engineering, of Transilvania University in Brasov, during the restoration camp 13 for Astra. The object was the cart from Brateiu, Sibiu County, a horse-drawn cart, dating from the end of the XIXth century. The object with a complex construction including wood and metallic elements, though in a fairly good conservation state, needed interventions such as cleaning, curative and preventive biological protection, consolidation of frail wood, restoration of metallic elements and minor completions and chromatic integration. The restored object was exhibited in Sibiu and Braşov.