STICKING STONES: Rediscovering medieval wood tar adhesives for stone conservation

About STICKING STONES

Medieval northern European stone churches are at increased risk of damage due to climate change, and forgotten historic materials and techniques may provide the key to saving our architectural stone heritage. The recent discovery of hundreds of medieval wood tar adhesive repairs on Stavanger cathedral in Norway has shed light on a lost historic craft tradition. The STICKING STONES project will rediscover forgotten medieval techniques of construction using wood tar adhesives.

STICKING STONES takes as starting point Stavanger cathedral as case study. This will be combined with extensive fieldwork in Northern Europe to map the broader medieval European context of architectural adhesive use. Intangible heritage and embodied knowledge are key to understanding the craft skills of wood tar repairs across medieval northern Europe, in conjunction with comprehensive material characterization of historic samples. Subsequently, we will test the performance of reengineered wood tar adhesives as sustainable alternatives to synthetic adhesives currently used in stone conservation.

STICKING STONES consists of a multidisciplinary project team with experts from conservation, archaeology, art history, materials science and geology. The team includes a PhD candidate based at the Museum of Archaeology, and a postdoctoral researcher at Delft University of Technology.