Conservation departments

Conserving a medieval dog skeleton

When repair work was carried out in the Billiard Room at Speke Hall in the late 1970s the opportunity was taken to carry out an archaeological excavation under the floor. Amongst the archaeological finds here was this skeleton of a mediaeval dog, dating from around 1550. The head and one of the legs are missing and were possibly lost when alterations were made to the house, although it is a mystery how that happened.

In 2011 the remains of the skeleton were conserved before going on display towards the end of the year in the final phase of the Museum of Liverpool. The bones had survived pretty well since 1979 due to initial cleaning and repairs carried out soon after excavation. However they did need the following treatment to prepare them for display. Click on the thumbnails to see each stage of the process.