My name is Susannah Kelly and I’m an archaeological conservator. A conservator is someone who preserves and maintains archaeological material, the artefacts after they’ve been excavated.

My involvement with Drumclay, like most archaeological sites, is usually after the excavation has occurred. The condition of all the material from Drumclay was very, very, very good. As a conservator it was an easy job.

On the crannog, the conditions were absolutely optimum. They weren’t acidic, they weren’t alkaline, they were waterlogged so that there wasn’t biological attack on organic material, so all the organic material survived perfectly. There wasn’t much corrosion happened on the metal work, it came out in pristine condition as well the same with bone, leather - all materials survive very well in the neutral, waterlogged environment.

The object that sticks in my mind most was a comb. The combs of that period are made of bone or antler. This comb was about 12 cms long, so it was a very large object. It was relatively intact, it was missing a few teeth, but apart from that it was fine. They’re made of a series of plates that the teeth are cut in to and then sandwiched between two side plates and little iron rivets bolted in to hold the plates in position and then the comb was decorated. But it was more or less perfect apart from a few missing teeth and I still don’t understand how they actually made them because they are just so fine. You can’t even get a scalpel blade in between the teeth. They are beautiful pieces.

Being involved with Drumclay was extremely exciting because, basically the range of material that was coming out, the high quality of it, the condition of the objects was next to perfect. When some of the objects came out they looked like you could have just bought them in a shop today. They take your breath away.