"We touch the textile as little as possible "

"We always wash our hands first "

"This foot is completely degraded 

We never make something anew 

We conserve what is there 

To make things anew is historical forgery"

"Always has to be reversible , in twenty years, when new techniques have developed, people should be able to make changes "

"Completely weathered 

The fiber is gone "

"Every time I turn it around or touch it, material comes off 

Every material, that old, keeps losing fibers. "

"I copied all the pattern 

And remade it 

For the other one I need to make it again, because they are never identical "

"This piece is in this boot in one piece, and the other boot in 3 pieces "

"By working with it you really get to know the object "

"It has not been washed 

We hardly ever wash 

Because every treatment needs to be reversible 

Washing is impossible to reverse "

"There can be traces that are archeologically interesting, or that can be genetically interesting 

If you wash, that will be all gone "

"Sometimes it is necessary, when your textile is so dirty that it can cause damage to your object 

That can be for example when there is sand inside, which is sharp, that can harm your textile "

"The history of your piece is very important for the scientific knowledge of your piece 

They are techniques that we cannot do anymore 

The finest linens from our collection, today we are not able to make those anymore 

Either because we lost the technique or because there were maybe genetically different kinds of flax "

"For that reason we try to intervene the least as possible 

And keep the history as much as possible "

"They were not interested in textile 

That’s why there are hardly any scientific studies around the topic 

The grave of Tutankhamun , the textile has only been looked at in 1992 

Let alone the analyses…  "

"That is something like 1000 after Christ 

Samite weaving 

At least two weft systems and two warp systems 

They call that complex bindings 

Manually woven "

"I’m laying them flat now, the pleads

With small weights 

To be able to do anything about it, I need to lay it flat 

I will not iron it "

"Look , these are all falsifications 

This is a false loop fabric 

That is just sewn on top 

You can see it on the background 

They try to make a loop pile "

"Here you also see it, they just worked on top

That is a nice patchwork of everything together 

That head, or what has to look like a head, is just placed there after

All those lines, just fake 

Also here, completely remade 

Probably 19^th century, for commerce "

"To preserve the materials we need a constant humidity 

From 48degrees and a temperature of 18 degrees 

Here it is 20 degrees, but that its constant is the most important 

That is centrally arranged 

We have a central for all the rooms , 

There are alarms attached to that 

So if humidity or temperature changes the technician will be warned on his phone 

So he can come and adjust it 

It’s supposed to be like that 

It’s very important "

"Pure stylistically it is always risky to date objects"

"if there is a variation in climatological circumstances 

textile can have only little fluctuation"

"It has been for a few thousands of years in the ground 

It’s not supposed to be consumed by us 

I hope we can enjoy it for some more thousand years 

Otherwise you can’t afford to exhibit them " 

"So it is a combination between showing something and conserving it 

You need to keep that in consideration "

"Every plead is supported 

A vertical setup is not that good for conservation 

Every plead is a weak point which can cause a rupture in time "

"A difference in experience 

This is a tunica but it became more like a painting 

This will last the longest, but I don’t see a human in this "

"These are the body fluids which you see there 

By the way they were wrapped inside 

A head and the start of the shoulders "

"That’s a big the danger of stitching everything on a backing 

You make the textile into a kind of painting "

"That is completely supported 

Just to support the weaving 

Not only the holes"

"In Egypt everything was s spun 

Imported wool from Persia was z spun 

So by looking at the spin direction you can trace where it’s from 

Now and then you find z spun material in an Egyptian grave 

But that could have been imported of course "

Translation and transcription of excerpts of a conversation with restorer Kristin van Passel at the Phoebus Foundation Antwerp by Evi Olde Rikkert