Boxes have arrived

 

Our first shipment of 6000+ boxes from Enviropack have arrived at the facility.

Faxitron Digital X-ray

 

Now that construction of the Sustainable Archaeology Research Centre is complete at the University of Western Ontario, we have been busy purchasing our new equipment. This is the new digital x-ray machine - a Faxitron, model 43855F with CR scanner and N90 nanofocus from PharmMedSci. This unit is housed in the Ancient Images Laboratory and will be used for non-destructive 2D examination, identification and reconstruction of archaeological artifacts and organic remains. Examples of radiography applications include the biomechanical and morphometrical analysis of bone, the deposition patterns of enamel, cementum and dentin in teeth, identification of rusted or corroded artifacts, the material composition of earthenware ceramics and mineral inclusions and the characterization of source morphology and inclusions in stone tools.

 

Landscaping

 

It's a monumental week for the Sustainable Archaeology Research centre at UWO. We've completed all of the requirements for our Occupancy Permit and once the paperwork has been filed with the City of London, our doors will be open! The interior of the building is now complete - and the landscaping will be finished by Wednesday. This is a view of the west side of the Research centre - the view that faces Wonderland Road, a main thoroughfare through the City. The dirt will be sprayed with hydro seed, and given the cooler temperatures and increased precipitation from what we were experiencing earlier this summer, it is expected that the seed should take quite quickly. A year ago we were asking the General Contractor (Tonda) to please hold off on ground-breaking until after the Museum's Harvest Festival - this year we're asking them to please finish up before the Festival commences this weekend. So the construction process as been a full year in the works!

It's time for us to turn our attention towards the next phase of the project's development - the digital database. We have been working on policy documents over the summer and roughing out our collections guidelines. This process, along with the actual construction of the database itself, will be ongoing throughout the fall and winter months. By January, we aim to have a beta database set up for testing with a goal towards accepting our first collections by early spring.

Visualization Gallery

 

The new Octoterra wall has been installed in the Visualization room (that's a bunch of twigs in cross-section, though the detail is lost at this scale) - bringing all of the rooms in the new facility to completion. Landscaping begins on Tuesday after the Labour Day long weekend. Over the next couple of weeks the touch-ups will be made that will make the facility picture-perfect for its community debut during the Doors Open London event on the 17-18th of the month. If you're local, stop by and take a look at what we've been up to. Over the next few months we will be furnishing the facility with equipment and working on getting the digital database up and running.

Count down to occupancy

 

Construction is finally winding down. All that remains for the outside of the building is a rail for the wheelchair ramp and some landscaping, which will commence the first full week of September when summer temperatures have leveled off. There are still a few finishing touches to be done inside the facility - wall paneling to be installed, doors to be stained, baseboards finished. We are excited to start the installation of our RFID tracking system in the fall, supplied by OCR. During the weekend of September 16-18th, the Museum of Ontario Archaeology will be hosting their annual Harvest Festival. The event coincides with Doors Open London, in which both the museum and the Sustainable Archaeology Center will open their doors to the public during that weekend.

Boxes & shelves

 

This photo demonstrates how the boxes will be stored in the facility - single stacked, 2 deep. The boxes in the photo are the size and colour of those that will be used by the facility. Our first box shipment is expected by the end of October.

Floors sealed

 

Shelving complete - floors in  the facility sealed. We're down to the final stages of construction now as the general contractor works through their checklist to completion. We anticipate our occupancy permit by next week and look forward to moving into the facility. Now we can focus our attention to the development of the database and our collections policy.