A cast of thousands
15 October 2009
While contractors are hard at work on the Museum site staff at RAMM are busy preparing the fabulous new displays.
At the Ark, RAMM's off site store, conservators are preparing all the objects that will be on show when RAMM reopens in 2011.
One mammoth task is conserving RAMM's collection of 38,000 mollusc shells. Long hours have been spent patiently cleaning the inside and outside of every shell, from tiny cup-and-saucer limpets to large spiny whelks and amazing tropical monsters. Progress is steady and we have now just passed the half way mark, 20,000 shells have been treated so far.
All of these shells will be housed with other fragile and sensitive items in the collections study centre on the ground floor of the new RAMM. Visitors to the study centre will be able to see them as well as RAMM's amazing collection of over 60,000 butterflies and sensitive items from the art collection.
