ambix, Vol. 62 No.

3, August 2015, 266–286

Michael Faraday’s Contributions to

Archaeological Chemistry
Gabriel Moshenska
UCL Institute of Archaeology, UK

The analysis of ancient artefacts is a long but largely neglected thread within
the histories of archaeology and chemistry. This paper examines Michael Fara-
day’s contributions to this nascent field, drawing on his published correspon-
dence and the works of his antiquarian collaborators, and focusing in
particular on his analyses of Romano-British and ancient Egyptian artefacts.
Faraday examined the materials used in ancient Egyptian mummification,
and provided the first proof of the use of lead glazes on Roman ceramics.
Beginning with an assessment of Faraday’s personal interests and early
work on antiquities with Humphry Davy, this paper critically examines the his-
toriography of archaeological chemistry and attempts to place Faraday’s work
within its institutional, intellectual, and economic contexts.

Introduction
In this paper I examine Michael Faraday’s contributions to archaeological chemistry,
a hitherto-neglected area of overlap between the histories of antiquarianism, archae-
ological science, and analytical chemistry. Alongside his own research Faraday
carried out chemical analyses for private, corporate, and government clients; his
archaeological work from the early 1830s to the late 1840s makes up just one
element in the array of activities recorded in his publications, notebooks, and corre-
spondence. However, I would argue that this archaeological work, including ana-
lyses of ancient ceramic, metal, glass, and organic artefacts, constitutes a
historically significant theme within his larger body of work that deserves our atten-
tion. My aim in examining Faraday’s work on Romano-British and ancient Egyptian
artefacts is to shed light not only upon a forgotten aspect of the history of archaeol-
ogy, but also upon the broader intellectual contexts of the period, bridging the
sciences and humanities at a time when such divisions were becoming gradually
more evident.

© Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry 2015 DOI 10.1179/1745823415Y.0000000004
 FARADAY’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY 267

Before Faraday, early chemists had performed analyses of ancient materials and
antiquities to advance their own research or to satisfy their curiosity. The period
of Faraday’s work saw a change in both the intellectual and the labour economies
of archaeology, as archaeologists began to send specific categories of materials
such as human and animal bones, organic residues, and metal objects for analysis
by specialists in exchange for payment, or as favours to friends and colleagues.
While it would be incorrect, as I will demonstrate, to call Faraday the first archae-
ological chemist, his work and that of his contemporaries marks a fundamental
change in the development of the scientific study of the human past.
Michael Faraday has been the subject of numerous biographical studies and the
details of his life and career are well attested.1 Best known today for his ground-
breaking discoveries in chemistry and electromagnetism, Faraday was born in
1791 into a family of modest means and nonconformist religious views. During
his apprenticeship as a bookbinder and stationer Faraday was able to read widely
across a range of subjects, and became a member of John Tatum’s City Philosophical
Society. He attended Humphry Davy’s lectures at the Royal Institution and later pre-
sented him with a bound volume of his lecture notes. Davy found Faraday work at
the Royal Institution, and later took him as his secretary and valet on an eighteen-
month trip around Europe from 1813 to 1815, spending time in Paris, Florence,
Rome, and Geneva, and meeting and working with many of the Continental scho-
lars of the time. Following Davy’s retirement Faraday continued working at the
Royal Institution under his successor, William Brande. Faraday was appointed
Director of the laboratory in 1825 and the first Fullerian Professor of Chemistry
in 1833. His research ranged across chemistry and materials science, including the
development of innovative equipment and materials such as high quality glass
lenses. Early in his career Faraday began studying electricity, later developing the
study of electromagnetism for which he is best known. Faraday and his wife lived
in rooms at the Royal Institution before moving to a house in Hampton Court fol-
lowing his retirement in 1858, where he died in 1867 shortly before his seventy-sixth
birthday.

Faraday and antiquity

Faraday’s education and early career predated the narrowly defined categories of
“sciences” and “arts,” and his intellectual interests ranged widely. To understand
Faraday’s interests in antiquities and archaeology it important to bear in mind
that a basic knowledge and interest in antiquity, particularly classical antiquity,
was de rigueur amongst his educated intellectual contemporaries. The clearest indi-
cations of Faraday’s antiquarian interests date from his tour of Europe with the
Davys, during which they visited sites of historical and cultural interest, as well as
1
Geoffrey Cantor, Michael Faraday: Sandemanian and Scientist (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991); Frank A. J. L. James,
Michael Faraday: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); John Tyndall, Faraday as a
Discoverer, 2nd ed. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1870).
268 GABRIEL MOSHENSKA

allowing free time which Faraday largely spent walking around the cities that they
visited to observe their architecture and historic sites.2 The party explored the
Roman ruins at Nîmes, and later in the Museo di Storia Naturale in Florence they
saw Egyptian mummies, including one that had been unwrapped. During their
sojourn in Rome, Faraday explored notable ruins including the Coliseum,
Trajan’s baths, the Temple of Minerva Medica, and the Forum; “Again a thousand
other objects as tombs temples statues pyramids pillars road &c which continually
fill the eye.”3 Faraday’s letters home show his “genuine amazement … at the size,
extent and magnificence of ancient Rome.”4 As he wrote to one friend, “that
mind must be dull indeed that is not urged to think & think again on these astonish-
ing remains of the Romans when they appear in sight at every corner.”5
Faraday’s descriptions of antiquities in his diaries and letters demonstrate a his-
torical and aesthetic appreciation, but as Davy’s assistant there was an additional
scientific dimension. The Queen of Naples had given Davy a vessel containing
ancient pigment and Davy had collected samples of pigments from the frescoes of
Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Rome, as well as containers of pigment found during
recent excavations at the Flavian Palace in Rome.6 He and Faraday analysed
these samples, together with a piece of blue glass found at Hadrian’s Villa, and com-
pared their findings to descriptions of pigments by Pliny, Vitruvius, and Theophras-
tus. As Williams blithely but incorrectly recorded, “Except for being the first
application of analytical chemistry to the problems of archaeology this diversion
was of little importance.”7 Davy recorded their findings in a paper read at the
Royal Society in 1815, and later compared these Roman samples with pigments
taken from the ruins of the Romano-British villa at Bignor in Sussex.8
During his tenure at the Royal Institution, first as Davy’s assistant and later as
Director of the laboratory, Faraday carried out a considerable amount of analytical
work for commercial, legal, and government clients.9 Amongst the wide variety of
analyses that Faraday carried out, a small but significant proportion were what
could be described as archaeological or archaeometrical. Forgan notes just one of
these, a question of “speculative archaeology [examining] whether earth from
mounds in Jerusalem contained ancient ashes (Faraday thought not).”10 Faraday’s

2
Brian Bowers and Lenore Symons, eds., Curiosity Perfectly Satisfied: Faraday’s Travels in Europe 1813–1815
(London: Peter Peregrinus Ltd, 1991).
3
Bowers and Symons, Curiosity, 138.
4
James Hamilton, Faraday: the Life (London: HarperCollins, 2002), 96.
5
Faraday to Abbott, 1 May 1814 and 24 July 1814, in The Correspondence of Michael Faraday, ed. Frank A. J. L.
James (London: Institution of Electrical Engineers, 1991), Vol. 1, 72–77.
6
Hamilton, Faraday, 98.
7
L. Pearce Williams, Michael Faraday: a Biography (London: Chapman & Hall, 1965), 39.
8
Humphry Davy, “Some Experiments and Observations on the Colours Used in Painting by the Ancients,” Philoso-
phical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 105 (1815): 97–124; Humphry Davy, “Observations Upon the
Composition of the Colours Found on the Walls of the Roman House Discovered at Bignor in Sussex,” Archaeologia
18 (1817): 222.
9
Sophie Forgan, “Faraday – From Servant to Savant: the Institutional Context,” in Faraday Rediscovered: Essays on
the Life and Work of Michael Faraday, 1791–1867, ed. David Gooding and Frank A. J. L. James (Basingstoke: Mac-
millan, 1985), 51–67; Cantor, Faraday.
10
Forgan, “Faraday,” 57.
 FARADAY’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY 269

letters reveal other activities of this kind, including the examination of dust from
inside the Great Pyramid and advice on whether or not to place lightning conductors
on Trajan’s Column in Rome.11 These letters include an extensive correspondence
over several years with Edward Hawkins, Keeper of Antiquities at the British
Museum, concerning the conservation and analysis of various artefacts.12 Faraday’s
activities on behalf of the British Museum and in archaeological conservation more
generally are deserving of study in their own right.

The historiography of archaeological chemistry

At this point it is worth considering previous studies of the development of scientific
analyses of antiquities and archaeological materials. The history of archaeological
chemistry is an underdeveloped field with numerous subjects, sites, and individuals
deserving of detailed and substantial research. To some extent it overlaps with the
history of archaeological and architectural conservation, as well as the emergence
of archaeobotany and zooarchaeology. The history of archaeological chemistry is
also of interest for the new light that it can shed on the careers of pioneers in the
field of general chemistry such as Guillaume-François Rouelle, Martin Heinrich Kla-
proth, Jöns Jacob Berzelius, and Marcellin Berthelot.13
Most writing on the history of archaeological chemistry forms background
material for surveys or discussions of more recent or contemporary work, and as
such typically aims to provide a chronological and teleological account.14 These
and similar accounts draw on earlier publications that explored primary sources
to a greater extent, principally the works of archaeological chemist Earle Caley.15
Caley was the first scholar to highlight one of Faraday’s contributions to archaeolo-
gical chemistry, namely his analysis of lead-glazed ceramics found on a Romano-
British site by the photographer, psychiatrist, and antiquarian Hugh Welch
Diamond, discussed in more detail below.16
11
Hamilton to Faraday, 30 May 1837, in Correspondence, Vol. 2, 432; Volpicelli to Faraday, 22 June 1850, in Corre-
spondence, Vol. 4, 159–60.
12
Faraday to Donaldson, 21 April 1837, in Correspondence, Vol. 2, 418; Faraday to Hawkins, 1839, in Correspon-
dence, Vol. 6, 697.
13
Earle R. Caley, “The Early History of Chemistry in the Service of Archaeology,” Journal of Chemical Education 44
(1967): 120–23.
14
E.g. Garman Harbottle, “Chemical Characterization in Archaeology,” in Contexts for Prehistoric Exchange, ed.
Jonathon E. Ericson and Timothy K. Earle (New York: Academic Press, 1982), 13–51; Norman Herz and Ervan
G. Garrison, Geological Methods for Archaeology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); A. Mark Pollard
and Carl Heron, Archaeological Chemistry (Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2008).
15
E.g. Earle R. Caley, “Klaproth as a Pioneer in the Chemical Investigation of Antiquities,” Journal of Chemical Edu-
cation 26 (1949): 242–47, on 268; Earle R. Caley, “Early History and Literature of Archaeological Chemistry,”
Journal of Chemical Education 28 (1951): 64–66; Caley, “Early History of Chemistry.”
16
Caley, “Early History and Literature,” 66. In consulting Diamond’s 1847 article which contains Faraday’s report,
Caley mistakenly gave its date as 1867 based, I believe, on a misreading of the roman numerals on the title page
of the journal Archaeologia, transposing the X and L in MDCCCXLVII. That Diamond and Faraday’s work is
dated 1867 (the year of Faraday’s death and long after his retirement) in most subsequent works on the history of
archaeological chemistry is testament to Caley’s influence. A notable exception to this is A. Mark Pollard,
“Letters from China: a History of the Origins of the Chemical Analysis of Ceramics,” Ambix 62 (2015): 50–71.
270 GABRIEL MOSHENSKA

Caley’s work traced the development of archaeological chemistry from the late
eighteenth century onwards, focusing in particular on the work of a few individuals,
most notably Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1743–1817), Carl Göbel (1794–1851),
and Marcellin Berthelot (1827–1907).17 At the same time, Caley highlights the con-
tributions to archaeological science made by leading chemists such as Davy and Ber-
zelius, as well as a host of other European scholars. Most interestingly, Caley
differentiates between studies of antiquities made by men of science for their own
interest, and those carried out at the behest of archaeologists or antiquarians.
Caley suggests that the earliest example of the latter is the chemical analysis of Assyr-
ian bronzes by T. T. Philipps on behalf of Austen Henry Layard, published as an
appendix to the latter’s 1853 Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon.
He observes that “This seems to be the earliest concrete indication of the beginning
of appreciation by archaeologists of the value of chemical information about
materials and objects recovered from excavation.”18 As Pollard has observed, Fara-
day’s extensive and wide-ranging work on behalf of the archaeologist John Gage
“probably constitutes one of the first specialist scientific reports in archaeology,”
and certainly predates Philipps and Layard’s collaboration by decades, while
James points out that the British Museum had also approached Faraday to study
Layard’s finds.19 In fact, as we will see, Faraday was one of a number of chemists
providing analyses to antiquarians and archaeologists.
Recent work in the history of archaeological chemistry has included surveys of the
emergence of archaeometallurgy in Revolutionary France and of ceramic analysis,
again principally in France.20 This latter study includes a discussion of Faraday’s
work with Gage and Diamond, discussed in more depth below. Hopefully these
studies are an indication of a new, more critical historical approach to the subject
that moves beyond previously published accounts to re-evaluate the original scien-
tific texts.

The institutionalisation of science and archaeology

An examination of Faraday’s work in archaeological chemistry can also shed light
on the forms, locations, and dynamics of knowledge creation in the first half of
the nineteenth century. Recent developments in the study of science from socio-
economic, geographical, religious, and broader sociological perspectives offer a
number of useful tools for locating and understanding Faraday’s work in a variety
of contexts. This is particularly useful when studying early Victorian Britain, a

17
Caley, “Klaproth”; Caley, “Early History and Literature”; Caley, “Early History of Chemistry.”
18
Caley, “Early History of Chemistry,” 121; Austen Henry Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon:
With Travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the Desert (London: John Murray, 1853).
19
Pollard, “Letters from China”; Faraday to Hawkins, 11 October 1851, in Correspondence, Vol. 4, 336.
20
Pollard, “Letters from China”; A. Mark Pollard, “From Bells to Cannon – The Beginnings of Archaeological Chem-
istry in the Eighteenth Century,” Oxford Journal of Archaeology 32 (2013): 335–41.
 FARADAY’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY 271

time and place of profound and enduring transformation in scholarly disciplines,

networks, institutions, professions, identities, and practices.
The period covered in this study from the early 1830s to the late 1840s saw a
transformation in the institutional structures of the British intellectual worlds of
science and archaeology: from division and dissent in the Royal Society and the
founding of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1831, to
similar divisions within the Society of Antiquaries and the formation in 1843 of
the British Archaeological Association.21 Despite these parallels and the consider-
able overlap in membership between these groups, as Levine has noted, “The
relationship between science and history in Victorian culture has ramifications far
wider than a simple similarity in their organisational growth.”22 Nonetheless,
there were notable overlaps. The Royal Society had supported the growth of what
historian of archaeology Bruce Trigger called “scientific antiquarianism” in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and into the mid-nineteenth century notable
discoveries were presented at meetings of both the Royal Society and the Society
of Antiquaries.23 Humphry Davy’s studies of ancient pigments were published in,
respectively, the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions and the Society of Anti-
quaries’ Archaeologia.24 However, Evans argues that it was under Davy’s presidency
(1820–1827) that the Royal Society became more narrowly and specifically “scien-
tific in the modern sense,” although she notes that in 1846, towards the end of my
period of interest, there were still seventy-nine individuals who held Fellowships of
both the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries.25 It would be entirely incor-
rect to suggest that the period from ca. 1830 to 1850 saw the firm demarcation of
two fields: the study of the natural world and the study of human history; but it
was undoubtedly marked by the emergence of new institutions and professional
identities, most notably the BAAS and the “scientists” amongst its members. This
interplay between disciplines forms the background for my interest in Faraday’s
work in archaeological chemistry.

Faraday’s archaeological work

In the following sections I examine in greater detail Faraday’s work with, and on
behalf of, various antiquarian scholars from the early 1830s to the late 1840s.
Where possible I have tried to outline the connections between the parties involved,
to place Faraday’s activities within the contexts of nineteenth-century social and
intellectual life.

21
The Society of Antiquaries during this period has been described by Levine as being in a state of “intellectual bank-
ruptcy”: Philippa Levine, The Amateur and the Professional: Antiquarians, Historians and Archaeologists in Victor-
ian England 1838–1886 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 50.
22
Levine, Amateur, 3.
23
Bruce Trigger, A History of Archaeological Thought, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 106.
24
Davy, “Some Experiments”; Davy, “Observations.”
25
Joan Evans, A History of the Society of Antiquaries (Oxford: Society of Antiquaries of London, 1956), 227.
272 GABRIEL MOSHENSKA

figure 1 A view of the Bartlow Hills, from John Gage, “A Plan of Barrows Called the Bartlow
Hills” (1833), facing page 2.

John Gage and the Bartlow Hills artefacts

The Bartlow Hills are a group of Romano-British barrows or burial mounds close to
the village of Bartlow, south-east of Cambridge (Figure 1). Over the years several
of the group have been destroyed by excavation, railway construction, and agricul-
ture, but the three that remain are the largest Roman barrows in Britain.26 Several of
the barrows were excavated and tunnelled into during the 1830s by the antiquarian
John Gage, who found the remains of wood and brick burial chambers at their
centres. Many of the artefacts recovered during this work, including well-preserved
sealed glass vessels, were sent by Gage to be analysed by Faraday at the Royal Insti-
tution. Faraday’s detailed reports were included by Gage in several of the papers he
submitted to the Society of Antiquaries’ journal Archaeologia. Amongst Gage’s and
Faraday’s mutual friends was the Cambridge scholar William Whewell (1794–
1866), who together with the geologist Adam Sedgwick was present at one of
Gage’s excavations at Bartlow.
John Gage (1786–1842; after 1838 known as John Gage Rokewode) was a gentle-
man scholar, collector, and antiquarian, most of whose work focused on the county
of Suffolk. A Catholic and descendent of the gunpowder plotter Ambrose Rook-
wood, Gage took the name Rokewode in 1838 when he inherited the Rokewood
estates. Gage served for many years as Director of the Society of Antiquaries, and
published extensively in the society’s journal. In her history of the Society, Joan
Evans called Gage “a man of courtesy, kindness, and good learning.”27

26
Hella Eckardt, Amanda Clarke, Sophie Hay, Stephen Macaulay, Pat Ryan, David Thornley, and Jane Timby, “The
Bartlow Hills in Context,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society 98 (2009): 47–64.
27
Evans, Society of Antiquaries, 243. Many of Gage’s publications focused on medieval religious texts and histories,
and it is important, as Evans observed, “to remember that the study of the ecclesiastical remains of the Middle
Ages was still hampered by Protestant prejudice.” As one of Gage’s colleagues at the Society of Antiquaries wrote
to him at the time: “I admire much … that extraordinary change in the disposition of the public mind, which has
 FARADAY’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY 273

In local folklore the Bartlow Hills were said to cover great mounds of the dead
from the Battle of Assandun between Cnut and Edmund Ironside in 1016.28
Richard Neville, a later excavator of the site, was present at one of Gage’s later exca-
vations at a point when the date of the barrows was still uncertain:

it was my fortune to be present when the largest and centre hill was opened (1835), and
never shall I forget the anxiety and interest evinced by Mr Rokewode, nor the delight
apparent in every feature when our eyes were gladdened by the first symptoms of the
deposit, a pair of bronze strigils, and parts of the cist or wooden chest in which they
had been secreted. ‘The great question is now at once and for ever decided!’ he
exclaimed; ‘what is to become of the Danish christening? These remains are purely
Roman;’ a correct reading which the experience of every moment only served to
confirm.29

Gage’s first excavations at the Bartlow Hills took place in January 1832, when over
the course of a week he excavated three of the seven barrows. In the first of these he
uncovered the remains of a large wooden chest, consisting of thick but badly
decayed wood and iron nails and fittings. The chest contained a number of glass
and ceramic vessels as well as a bronze lock, iron lamp, and some cremated
human bones.30 A second barrow was opened and found to contain a brick
chamber, inside which was a large glass vessel containing “a clear pale yellow
liquor, covering a deposit of burnt human bones,” as well as a smaller glass vase con-
taining a brown liquid (Figure 2).31 Alongside these and other ceramic, glass, and
metal artefacts were “Fragments of fine platted basketwork in the shape of a little
bottle, with a white coating inside.”32 It was this assemblage that Gage first
passed to Faraday for analysis.
When Faraday first wrote to Gage concerning the artefacts, some three weeks
after the excavation, he indicated that although he was studying them, they
remained in Gage’s possession. However his full report of his analysis written less
than two weeks later shows that they had been in his possession, presumably at
the Royal Institution.33 Gage seems to have presented Faraday with a number of
specific questions concerning the finds, focusing in particular on the nature of the
27
Continued
permitted the Antiquarian Society to publish under its auspices so papalistical a treatise. Soon I hope religious bigotry
will be entirely extinguished” (Evans, Society of Antiquaries, 235). Perhaps on the subject of Romano-British anti-
quities he found himself on safer ground.
28
Richard Neville, Antiqua Explorata: Being the Result of Excavations Made by Hon. R.C. Neville During the Winters
of 1845, and 1846, and the Spring of 1847; in and About the Roman Station at Chesterford, and Other Spots in the
Vicinity of Audley End (Saffron Walden: G. Youngman, 1847).
29
Richard Neville, Antiqua Explorata, 31–32.
30
John Gage, “A Letter from John Gage, Esquire, Director, to Hudson Gurney, Esq. Vice-President, &c. Accompanying
a Plan of Barrows Called the Bartlow Hills, in the Parish of Ashdon, in Essex, With an Account of Roman Sepulchral
Relics Recently Discovered in the Lesser Barrows,” Archaeologia 25 (1833): 1–23.
31
Gage, “A Letter from John Gage,” 7.
32
Gage, “A Letter from John Gage,” 8.
33
Faraday to Gage, 30 January 1832, in Correspondence, Vol. 2, 11; Faraday to Gage, 11 February 1832, in Corre-
spondence, Vol. 2, 17–20.
274 GABRIEL MOSHENSKA

figure 2 Roman sepulchral relics found in the Bartlow Hills, from John Gage, “A Plan of
Barrows Called the Bartlow Hills” (1833), facing page 7.

organic materials (the liquids and solid residues remaining in the glass vessels), and
on some of the metal objects.
Faraday’s report works through the objects systematically, describing in some
detail his workings and findings. The bones from the largest, liquid-filled glass
vessel were found to be fused with fragments of melted glass, and to have burnt
at such a temperature as to have calcined. Faraday found a copper-alloy coin
amongst the bones and judged that it had not been heated, contrary to Gage’s appar-
ent suggestion:

in reply to your question whether it has the appearance of having been heated, I must
state, though with great deference, that I do not think it has … if it had been subjected
to the same heat as that which the bones accompanying it have borne, I think it
would have been melted, or at least oxydized so violently … as to have taken away
from the distinctiveness of the impression.34

The greater part of the report focuses on the liquid and solid residues found inside
the glass vessels. In the case of the liquids, Faraday seems to have filtered and sub-
sequently heated the liquid; then dried, heated, and burnt samples of the resulting
residues. His report is clear and detailed:
34
Faraday to Gage, 11 February 1832, in Correspondence, Vol. 2, 18.
 FARADAY’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY 275

The liquor … was a very weak acqueous solution, containing a little carbonated soda
and traces of sulphate and muriate of soda; it contained no earthy salts. One fluid
ounce left 4.2 grains of a pale brownish substance, which when heated, blackened
and yielded a little ammonia, but did not flame or burn visibly.35

The small, square glass vessel held a soft, fatty or waxy residue of yellow-brown
colour, which Faraday removed by breaking it up before subjecting it to a range of
tests:
When the fatty substance was heated, it fuzed at temperature lower than 212° F. and on
cooling solidified becoming at the same time imperfectly crystallized. When heated with
water it melted and floated on the water, but did not dissolve in it. It dissolved instantly
upon the addition of a little alkali, forming a soap. It dissolved also freely in hot alcohol,
a bulky crystalline mass being produced as the solution cooled … It burnt with a bright
white smoky flame like fat, and had indeed all the characters of saponified fat36

Faraday concluded that the contents of the narrow-necked vessel were most likely
fat, introduced in a liquid state, and transformed into fatty acid either by heat or
over time. The final part of Faraday’s report details the white coating found inside
the basketwork artefact:
This substance is an odoriferous gum-resin. When heated, it evolves a fine aroma, some-
what resembling that of myrrh or frankincense; and at a higher temperature it burns with
a white smoky flame. Boiled in alcohol part dissolves and the solution is precipitated by
water; or boiled in water part dissolves & the solution is precipitated by alcohol.37

On 5 April 1832 Gage read his paper on the Bartlow Hills excavation, including
Faraday’s contribution, to the Society of Antiquaries. The following day Nicholas
Carlisle, the Secretary of the Society, wrote to Faraday to express his gratitude,
noting that “The Society think themselves much obliged to all who will assist in pro-
moting the useful purpose of advancing Science.”38
Gage returned to the Bartlow Hills in April 1835 when a tunnel was driven into
the centre of one of the larger barrows, revealing a hollow chamber at its core.39 The
opening of barrows has long been a popular spectacle, and Gage’s work was wit-
nessed by a distinguished group including “the Lords Maynard and Braybrooke
with their families, Professor Sedgwick, the Reverend William Whewell, and the
Reverend John Lodge, President of Magdalen College, Cambridge, the worthy
Rectors of Ashdon and Bartlow, and several ladies and gentlemen from the neigh-
bourhood.”40 The expedition to watch the dig was the subject of several pieces of
light verse composed by Whewell for the enjoyment of those present:
35
Faraday to Gage, 11 February 1832, in Correspondence, Vol. 2, 18.
36
Faraday to Gage, 11 February 1832, in Correspondence, Vol. 2, 19.
37
Faraday to Gage, 11 February 1832, in Correspondence, Vol. 2, 20.
38
Carlisle to Faraday, 6 April 1832, in Correspondence, Vol. 2, 33.
39
John Gage, “A Letter from John Gage, Esq. F.R.S., Director, to Hudson Gurney, Esq. F.R.S., Vice-President, Com-
municating the Recent Discovery of Roman Sepulchral Relics in One of the Greater Barrows at Bartlow, in the
Parish of Ashdon, in Essex,” Archaeologia 26 (1836): 300–17.
40
Gage, “A Letter from John Gage” [1836], 302.
276 GABRIEL MOSHENSKA

Nobles and learnèd clerks, and ladies gay,

Who all, in fair assembly ranged, were by,
When antiquarian pickaxe broke its way
Through Bartlow’s old mysterious tumuli.41

Gage’s friendship and familiarity with some of the leading scholars and natural phi-
losophers of his time may give an indication of why he approached Faraday in the
hope of obtaining a scientific analysis of the finds from his excavation. Nor was
Faraday the only specialist whom Gage engaged to examine his finds. The fragmen-
ted bones from the vessels uncovered in the 1832 excavation were examined by
William Clift (1775–1849), the keeper and “conservator” of the museum of the
Royal College of Surgeons. Clift’s findings are paraphrased in Gage’s report:

Mr. Clift … is of opinion, that those deposited with the liquid in the glass urn found in
the brick bustum, are of an adult, but whether male or female it is difficult to pronounce;
that the bones in the other glass urn are of a male, older, and more robust than the first
subject; and in response to the bone, the cavity of which contains an iron point, he is
doubtful whether it may not be ivory, and the handle of an instrument. At the same
time he remarked that, among the bones, there was more than one specimen unquestion-
ably human, which had acquired something of the same appearance as the bone just
noticed.42

Faraday’s analysis of the 1835 finds led to another extensive report reproduced in
Gage’s later publication, in which Faraday notes that Gage had requested that he
“notice any thing which … caught the attention.”43 The list of finds from this exca-
vation are detailed in Gage’s report but are also noted in one of Whewell’s poems,
from the perspective of one of the buried Romans:
Poor Icenius, don’t you know
They carried him off three years ago?
Certain robbers called Antiquaries
Came and disturbed his quiet lares,
Bored his barrow, and stole, alas!
His urns and bottles, his bronze and glass;
His worship’s chair that he used to sit in
At the quarter sessions for Eastern Britain,
His handsome funeral præfericulum,
His wife’s new-fashioned enamel reticulum;
Bagged the whole, – it did not matter a
Pin, whether vase, or lamp, or patera.
Even his bones, being stripped of their clothing,

41
William Whewell, “Nugæ Bartlovianæ [1],” in Fugitive Poems Connected With Natural History and Physical
Science, ed. C. G. B. Daubeny (Oxford and London: James Parker and Co, 1869), 213. Amongst his many activities
William Whewell was an accomplished poet, winning the Cambridge University Chancellor’s Gold Medal for poetry
in 1814, the second year it was awarded, for a work on Boadicea; see Richard Yeo, “Whewell, William (1794–
1866),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (hereafter DNB).
42
Gage, “A Letter from John Gage” [1833], 13.
43
Faraday to Gage, 2 June 1835, in Correspondence, Vol. 2, 266.
 FARADAY’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY 277

They took him away, and left him nothing.

All are gone, and the world may see ‘em
Making a bow at the Maynard Museum.44

Faraday examined the metalwork and surviving leather straps of the folding chair,
the glass enamels of the bronze vessel, and the fabric and content of the other
vessels. The lamp was of particular interest as the wick and fuel remained intact,
the latter hardened into “a cracked cake of a substance, dry, brittle, earthy in appear-
ance.”45 He also passed comment on the design of the lamp, which included a
bronze leaf to act as a shade and hand-guard. The longest section of the report
focuses on a small narrow-necked glass vessel filled to the top with distinct liquid
and solid layers, and sealed with asphalt.

Below this black cement was a dry solid substance, and then a mixture of solid and
liquid, all being fatty and the same general nature. A very little heat dissolved the
solid matter in the liquid, and an oil resulted. This oil was lighter than water, of a
yellow colour, burning with a bright flame, producing a red colour on litmus paper; dis-
solving abundantly in alcohol, and combining with alkalies so readily as to produce
much heat … At the bottom of the bottle, beneath and amongst the fat, was an
aqueous liquid sufficient in quantity to occupy about one third of the contents of the
whole bottle. It had a pale brown colour; was very sweet to the taste (with a degree of
roughness on the tongue); and had a faint vinous or apple-like smell. By exposure to
air it, in a few days, became darker in colour, and lost its smell. It was slightly acid;
was darkened in colour a little by per-sulphate of iron, as if a trace of astringent
matter was present … Being evaporated it left a large proportion of a sweet thick
syrup, which by more heat burnt like sugar or honey.46

This passage gives a good impression of the breadth of Faraday’s analytical arsenal
as brought to bear on Gage’s antiquities, including tasting the substances in ques-
tion. Faraday’s working relationship with Gage continued over the years: in 1836
he examined some beads and informed Gage that they were made of amber; in
1838 he analysed a bronze mirror with a tin reflective surface that Gage presented
at the Society of Antiquaries.47 The mirror had been discovered in Suffolk some
years earlier.48
Faraday’s work for Gage raises a number of questions. What inspired Gage to
submit his artefacts to Faraday for analysis? Mutual friends such as Whewell and
Pettigrew (see below) may have been a factor, as well as Faraday’s growing
renown. What does this tell us about the developments of archaeology and
science during this period? Gage’s was one of the first antiquarians to seek specialist
44
William Whewell, “Nugæ Bartlovianæ [2],” in Fugitive Poems Connected With Natural History and Physical
Science, ed. C. G. B. Daubeny (Oxford and London: James Parker and Co, 1869), 216–18.
45
Faraday to Gage, 2 June 1835, in Correspondence, Vol. 2, 267.
46
Faraday to Gage, 2 June 1835, in Correspondence, Vol. 2, 268.
47
Faraday to Gage, 28 March 1836, in Correspondence, Vol. 2, 348; Faraday to Gage, 22 January 1838, in Correspon-
dence, Vol. 2, 487.
48
John Gage, “A Letter from John Gage, Esq. F.R.S., Director, to Sir Henry Ellis, K.H., F.R.S., Secretary, Accompanying
a Roman Speculum, Exhibited by Sir William Middleton, Bart,” Archaeologia 27 (1838): 359–60.
278 GABRIEL MOSHENSKA

analyses of his finds, and his excavations took place in the years after the foundation
of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and a few years before the
foundation of the British Archaeological Association—organisations devoted to
modernising and expanding their fields of interest. Faraday’s work for Gage
coincided with some of his most important work on electromagnetic induction,
but Gage’s was not the only external work he took on at this time. It would also
be interesting to know whether or not Gage paid Faraday or the Royal Institution
for the work. However, Gage’s Romano-British antiquities were not the only
ancient materials that passed through Faraday’s laboratory during this period.

Thomas Pettigrew’s Egyptian mummies

British Egyptomania flourished in the early years of the nineteenth century following
the defeat of Napoleon’s forces in Egypt and the seizure of antiquities including the
Rosetta Stone, which arrived at the British Museum in 1802. A few years later the
Italian-born former circus strongman Giovanni Battista Belzoni began to ship
back to Britain the statues and architectural elements that today make up the
British Museum’s extraordinary Egyptian sculpture gallery.49 In 1820 Belzoni dis-
played some of his collection of antiquities in the Egyptian Hall on Piccadilly in
London and publicised his exhibition by unrolling several Egyptian mummies in
the presence of a number of distinguished physicians, surgeons, and anatomists.
Amongst his audience was Thomas Pettigrew, surgeon to the Dukes of Kent and
Sussex.50 Pettigrew was so inspired by Belzoni’s performance that he purchased a
mummy of his own and carried out an autopsy in his own home. Several years
later he began a systematic study of Egyptian embalming methods and a vigorous
programme of public mummy unrollings that would earn him the nickname
“Mummy” Pettigrew.51 At the Royal College of Surgeons in 1833, one of Pettigrew’s
mummy unrollings attracted such enormous interest that the Archbishop of Canter-
bury and the Bishop of London were amongst the many refused entrance to the
packed auditorium. The same year he assisted his friend John Davidson in
opening a mummy at the Royal Institution.52
In 1834 Pettigrew published a book entitled A History of Egyptian Mummies
based on his researches.53 The book, like many scholarly works of the era, ranges
widely across the history, historiography, ethnography, science, and practice of
49
Stanley Mayes, The Great Belzoni (London: Putnam, 1959); Stephanie Moser, Wondrous Curiosities: Ancient Egypt
at the British Museum (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).
50
Thomas J. Pettigrew, “Thomas Joseph Pettigrew, F.R.S., F.S.A., F.L.S., &c. &c. &c.,” in Medical Portrait Gallery:
Biographical Memoirs of the Most Celebrated Physicians, Surgeons, etc. etc. Who Have Contributed to the Advance-
ment of Medical Science, ed. Thomas J. Pettigrew (London, Whittaker, 1840), Vol. IV, 1–40.
51
Gabriel Moshenska, “Unrolling Egyptian Mummies in Nineteenth-Century Britain,” The British Journal for the
History of Science 47 (2014): 451–77; Gabriel Moshenska, “Thomas ‘Mummy’ Pettigrew and the Study of Egypt
in Early Nineteenth Century Britain,” in Histories of Egyptology: Interdisciplinary Measures, ed. William Carruthers
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), 201–14.
52
Warren Dawson, “Pettigrew’s Demonstrations Upon Mummies. A Chapter in the History of Egyptology,” Journal of
Egyptian Archaeology 20 (1934): 170–82.
53
Amongst the subscribers listed at the front of the book were Faraday, Gage, and Diamond.
 FARADAY’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY 279

mummification and embalming, as well as the emerging study of Egyptian religion

and funerary customs. Like most contemporary studies of mummification, Pettigrew
drew on classical references to Egyptian embalming in the works of Herodotus and
Diodorus Siculus, but his aim as an archaeologist and historian of medicine as well
as a surgeon was to reverse-engineer the various modes of mummification practised
in Ancient Egypt, and this required scientific as well as antiquarian insights. For
these, he turned to his old acquaintance Michael Faraday.
The lives of Pettigrew and Faraday offer some interesting parallels. Born within a
fortnight of each other into families of modest means in London, both became
apprentices, Faraday to a bookbinder and Pettigrew to a surgeon. As bright and
curious young men lacking much formal education, both were attracted to the self-
improving opportunities of John Tatum’s City Philosophical Society.54 At the age of
sixteen Pettigrew gave the first public lecture of this society, on the subject of insan-
ity.55 Both rose far from their modest beginnings. Faraday’s fame in his lifetime was
based to a considerable extent on his painstakingly documented research and dis-
coveries; Pettigrew, in contrast, was a capable social climber who cultivated rich
and aristocratic friends. Although he practised as a surgeon and anatomy teacher
throughout his professional life, the bulk of Pettigrew’s writings—with the exception
of a few medical reports and a slim volume on the brain—were on historical, anti-
quarian, and archaeological topics.
In March 1833 Pettigrew held his first mummy unrolling in front of an audience in
the lecture theatre at the Charing Cross Hospital.56 The audience included aristo-
crats, foreign dignitaries, and many of the most prominent antiquarians, surgeons,
physicians, and scholars of Ancient Egypt, including John Gage. Unlike many of his
later unrollings, the mummy was found to be complete and well preserved, including
a layer of gold leaf that had been applied to much of its skin. Pettigrew found small
crystalline structures on the skin of the mummy and sent a sample of these to
Faraday for analysis, hoping that their composition would shed light on the
embalming methods employed. Faraday reported his findings to Pettigrew:

The small needle-like crystals are very curious, but too minute in quantity, and too vague
as to their origin, to allow of much being made out relative to them. The crystallization is
very perfect and acicular, and, from the appearance, one might suppose them the result
of sublimation; but when the substance is heated it does not prove to be volatile. It fuzes,
and upon cooling concretes again, crystallizing the whole like spermaceti. It burns with a
bright flame, and evidently abounds in carbon and hydrogen. It is not soluble in water,
and had the odour, when heated, of a fatty matter; but then alkali acts very feebly upon
it, and dissolves only a very small portion. On the contrary, it is very soluble in alcohol,
the solution being precipitated by water. The substance may probably be a result of slow

54
Frank A. J. L. James, “Michael Faraday, The City Philosophical Society and the Society of Arts,” RSA Journal 140
(1992): 192–9.
55
Pettigrew, “Thomas Joseph Pettigrew.”
56
At the time, Pettigrew was employed as Professor of Anatomy at the hospital: he was fired a few years later for cor-
ruption. See R. J. Minney, The Two Pillars of Charing Cross: the Story of a Famous Hospital (London: Cassell,
1967).
280 GABRIEL MOSHENSKA

action upon organic (perchance animal) matter, and has, perhaps, been assisted in its for-
mation by heat.57

It is interesting to consider Faraday’s work for Pettigrew in the context of his other
activities at the time. As he noted in his letter to Pettigrew, Faraday had “stolen time
this morning” to analyse the crystals. On the day in question, 23 May 1833, Fara-
day’s diary records a busy day of experiments in the decomposition of sulphuric acid
by electrolysis.58
Like Gage, Pettigrew drew on the expertise of more than one expert: in his case,
the mummy from which the crystalline sample emerged also contained the fragmen-
tary remains of insects and pupae. Pettigrew brought these to the attention of the
renowned entomologist F. W. Hope, who provided a detailed report on the species
present in the sample.59 Nor was Faraday the only chemist who provided insights
into Pettigrew’s mummies: he sent samples of salt found inside one of his other
mummies to Andrew Ure, a Scot then living in London, who has been described
as Britain’s first “consulting chemist.”60 Ure reported that the salts were
“common culinary salt, chloride of sodium, mixed, as usually happens in nature,
with minute portions of sulphate of soda and muriate of lime … When the crystalline
matter was ignited in a platina capsule, it emitted a copious flame.”61
Pettigrew’s book is notable for containing not only Faraday’s, Hope’s, and Ure’s
reports on samples taken from a mummy, but also summaries of analyses of
mummy tissues undertaken by French chemists during the eighteenth and early nine-
teenth centuries. Chief amongst these was the work of Guillaume-François Rouelle,
whose 1754 paper Sur les Embaumements des Égyptiens describes what is probably
the earliest chemical analysis of mummified tissue.62

M. Rouelle has examined the embalming materials of six different mummies. These resi-
nous and bituminous substances he has carefully analysed … By distillation in a retort,
the heat being applied gradually, it gave at first a little insipid water, which, as the dis-
tillation proceeded, became more and more acid, then a limpid oil, slightly coloured,
of an odour resembling that of amber. A further distillation produced a thicker oil,
which, when congealed, also retained a similar odour to that of the first drawn oil.63

57
Extract of letter printed as a footnote in Thomas J. Pettigrew, A History of Egyptian Mummies and an Account of the
Worship and Embalming of the Sacred Animals by the Egyptians; With Remarks on the Funeral Ceremonies of
Different Nations and Observations on the Mummies of the Canary Islands, of the Ancient Peruvians, Burman
Priests, &c. (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1834), 53.
58
Thomas Martin, ed., Faraday’s Diary: Being the Various Philosophical Notes of Experimental Investigations made
by Michael Faraday D.C.L., F.R.S. During the Years 1820–1862 and Bequeathed by Him to the Royal Institution of
Great Britain (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1932), Vol. 2, 77–79.
59
Pettigrew, History of Egyptian Mummies, 53–55n; Thomas J. Pettigrew, “Obituary of Rev. F.W. Hope,” Journal of
the British Archaeological Association 19 (1863): 157–62.
60
Donald Cardwell, “Ure, Andrew (1778–1857),” DNB.
61
Pettigrew, History of Egyptian Mummies, 83.
62
Guillaume-François Rouelle, “Sur les Embaumements des Égyptiens,” Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences,
année MDCCL (1754): 123–50.
63
Pettigrew, History of Egyptian Mummies, 76.
 FARADAY’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY 281

Pettigrew’s correspondence with Faraday reveals another aspect of the latter’s anti-
quarian interests. Amongst Faraday’s duties at the Royal Institution was the organ-
isation of the Friday Evening Discourses as part of the Lecture Committee
established in 1828. As Forgan has noted:
The Friday Evenings were complex and varied occasions; additional demonstrations in
the Library were sometimes put on, and an interesting selection of objects exhibited.
From 1826 Faraday recorded all these objects in a notebook and was probably respon-
sible for this aspect of the evening’s entertainment.64

Faraday’s letters show that he wrote to Pettigrew several times to borrow Egyptian
antiquities for these library exhibitions. In June 1835 he also wrote to Gage asking
to borrow the bronze vessel (presumably the enamelled one) and the metal lamp to
display at his lecture “On Tin.”65 Some of the other exhibits—most notably material
from the Duke of Sussex’s extraordinary library—must have come from Pettigrew,
who served as the Duke’s librarian until 1830.66
Faraday’s analysis of a small chemical sample from an unwrapped mummy is a
relatively minor piece of analytical work, but in Pettigrew’s book, alongside analyses
by other noted men of science of the time, it lends gravity and authority to a novel
field of research—mummy unwrapping—widely regarded as a frivolous novelty,
and to some extent a rather distasteful spectacle.67

Hugh Welch Diamond’s lead-glazed ceramics

The best-known example of Faraday’s contributions to archaeological chemistry is
his analysis of the glaze on a ceramic vessel found on a Romano-British site in Ewell,
Surrey, by the antiquarian Hugh Welch Diamond. Where historians of archaeologi-
cal chemistry such as Caley and Harbottle refer to Faraday’s contribution, it is most
often to his addendum to Diamond’s short report, published by the Society of Anti-
quaries in 1847.68
Hugh Welch Diamond is an intriguing figure, best remembered today for his inter-
est in the development of photography. Diamond studied and practised medicine,
and like Pettigrew he was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and the
Medical Society of London. In the 1840s Diamond began working in psychiatry,
later serving as Superintendent of the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum. His photo-
graphs of asylum inmates created a sensation, and led to developments in psychiatric
photography as well as nineteenth-century conceptions of mental illness in general.
Diamond also pioneered the photographic recording of archaeological artefacts and

64
Forgan, “Faraday,” 56.
65
Faraday to Gage, 12 June 1835, in Correspondence, Vol. 2, 270.
66
William Jerdan, “Arts and Sciences: Royal Institution,” Literary Gazette 644 (1829): 340; Moshenska, “Thomas
‘Mummy’ Pettigrew.”
67
Moshenska, “Thomas ‘Mummy’ Pettigrew.”
68
Caley, “Early History and Literature”; Harbottle, “Chemical Characterization.”
282 GABRIEL MOSHENSKA

monuments, publishing extensively on the subject, and was appointed Honorary

Photographer to the Society of Antiquaries in 1854.69
Diamond’s archaeological and antiquarian activities were fairly diverse, as was
typical of the time. Like Pettigrew and Gage he was a member of the Numismatic
Society and like them he collected Egyptian antiquities. Alongside Gage and
Faraday he was a subscriber to Pettigrew’s volume on the history of mummies,
and in 1843 he unrolled an Egyptian mummy himself, together with Samuel Birch
of the British Museum.70
Diamond’s excavation took place in Ewell, Surrey, a few miles away from the
lunatic asylum where he was employed. The site was discovered, according to
Diamond, when “A workman of my friend Mr. William Brown being employed in
digging chalk, discovered, at about a distance of twenty feet from the surface, a
vessel, which was stated to be perfect; but, expecting it might have some valuable
contents, he immediately broke it with his pickaxe.”71 On further investigation a
number of narrow shafts were found cut vertically into the chalk, ranging from
twelve to twenty-seven feet deep. The pits were dug into the side of a hill, and
Diamond states that a trench was dug to expose the shafts in section. One of the
images accompanying the report shows this large trench cut into the hillside, expos-
ing the deep narrow shafts and showing what might be a small barrow above the
site.72 The shafts contained a range of artefacts including animal bones; Samian
Ware sherds and vessels, some showing potters’ marks and signs of repair; oyster
and mussel shells; and an assortment of other Romano-British ceramic, metal,
and glass artefacts. Amongst the ceramics, one vessel stood out significantly, as
Diamond noted:

One of these Vases is so remarkable that I am desirous of calling the attention of the
Society especially to it. It is of perfect Roman form, composed of a thin material, of a
bright green colour, with stripes of white or pale yellow laid on it, BEING PERFECTLY
GLAZED INSIDE AND OUT, apparently the same as in a piece of modern pottery. Its
antiquity, however, is incontestable, and some of the most competent judges have pro-
nounced it to be at least coeval with the other remains. I took it with my own hand
from the soil, in which it was firmly impacted, at a depth of about eighteen feet from
the surface, after working a long time on the spot … Dr Faraday has given me his valu-
able assistance.73

Faraday’s report is short and to the point: unlike his work for Pettigrew and Gage, he
gives no description of his analytical methods.
69
J. Tucker, “Diamond, Hugh Welch (1809–1886),” DNB.
70
Hugh Welch Diamond, “Description of an Egyptian Mummy, and of the Hieroglyphics Upon its Case, Supposed to
be of the Period of the Psammetici, Opened in 1843,” Archaeologia 31 (1845): 408–11.
71
Hugh Welch Diamond, “Account of Wells or Pits, Containing Roman Remains, Discovered at Ewell in Surrey,”
Archaeologia 32 (1847): 451–55, on 451.
72
Diamond, “Account.”
73
Diamond, “Account,” 452.
 FARADAY’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY 283

I have removed a little of the surface of the glaze from a place at the bottom of the vessel
outside, where it was thick, and find it to be, as you suspected, a lead glaze. There is
abundance of lead in it, with silver also, derived perhaps from the vessel itself, or
perhaps added as part of the glaze.74

Pollard has pointed out that Faraday’s findings directly contradict the work of the
French chemists Jean-Antoine Chaptal and Alexandre Brongniart, who found no
trace of lead in the glazes of ancient Roman ceramics and, according to Brongniart,
no metallic glazes on any European ceramics before the thirteenth century.75 As far
back as 1947 Caley observed that “Writers on the history of ceramics make contra-
dictory statements as to the time when lead glazes were first introduced” but as
Pollard points out, recent research has shown beyond any doubt that lead glazes
were used by the Romans.76
Diamond’s connections to Faraday, if any, are unclear, although there is a letter
from Faraday to Diamond provisionally dated 1844, apparently in response to a
request for his autograph.77 Perhaps by the time of the discoveries at Ewell, some
fifteen years after Faraday’s work for Gage and Pettigrew, his contributions and
interests were common knowledge amongst scholars with scientific as well as anti-
quarians interests; certainly Diamond’s writings on archaeological photography
indicate a strong grasp of chemistry.78

Faraday’s archaeological chemistry in context

Faraday’s contributions to archaeological chemistry need to be understood in a
number of different contexts, including that of his own work, and that of the devel-
opment of archaeology and archaeological science. It is clear from studies of Fara-
day’s work during the 1830s and 1840s that he made a determined effort to take
on less and less consultancy work so that he could concentrate as far as possible
on his own research. It is most likely that Faraday’s work on behalf of Gage, Petti-
grew, Diamond, and perhaps others was not driven in the first instance by his own
passion for antiquarian research, but that he regarded it as more or less akin to the
many other analyses that he carried out for friends, colleagues, and private, state,
and corporate clients. Therefore it is worth considering Faraday’s archaeological
work in the context of his other consultancy work, as well as the question of
whether and how much he was paid for it. Forgan’s analysis of the circumstances
74
Diamond, “Account,” 452.
75
A. Brongniart, Traité des Arts Céramiques, ou des Poteries, 2 vols. (Paris: Bechet Jeune & Mathias, 1844); Jean
Antoine Chaptal, “Sur Quelques Couleurs Trouvées à Pompeïa,” Annales de Chimie 70 (1809): 22–31; Pollard,
“Letters from China.”
76
Pollard, “Letters from China”; Earle R. Caley, “Results of a Chemical Examination of Some Specimens of Roman
Glaze from Tarsus,” American Journal of Archaeology 51 (4) (1947): 389–93, on 393; M. S. Tite, I. Freestone,
R. Mason, J. Molera, M. Vendrell-Saz, and M. Wood, “Lead Glazes in Antiquity: Methods of Production and
Reasons for Use,” Archaeometry 40 (1998): 241–60.
77
Faraday to Diamond, 1 March 1844, in Correspondence, Vol. 3, 194.
78
E.g. Hugh Welch Diamond, “Photography Applied to Archaeology and Practiced in the Open Air,” Notes & Queries
6 (155) (1852): 371–73.
284 GABRIEL MOSHENSKA

of Faraday’s work has pointed out the role of his consultancy work in supplementing
his income from the Royal Institution, and noted that “Such requests were the result
of the open-house, expert consultant policy Brande had fostered in the 1820s.”79
This work included analyses of clay samples for Wedgwood, of paper samples for
the Royal Institution’s printer, and work to settle patent disputes and insurance
claims. In the early years of his career in particular, this contract work took up a con-
siderable proportion of his time, and generated an impressive income.80
In his biography of Faraday, Tyndall delved into his accounts, and found that in
1830 private consultancy earned him more than a thousand pounds, ten times his
salary from the Royal Institution. However, although his private income rose even
higher in 1831, the following year it fell to a mere £155 9s, and subsequently fell
away to nothing.81 Tyndall recalled that “While once conversing with Faraday on
science, in its relations to commerce and litigation, he said to me, that at a certain
period of his career, he was forced definitely to ask himself, and finally to decide
whether he should make wealth or science the pursuit of his life.”82 Tyndall surmises
that this decision was most likely made sometime in 1832, and Cantor suggests that
this may have coincided with Faraday being made a deacon of his Sandemanian
church in July that year.83 Given the dates of his archaeological work, which with
the exception of his early work for Gage fall after 1832, it is possible that
Faraday neither asked for nor received payment for the analyses he carried out
for Gage, Pettigrew, or Diamond. However, Forgan notes that while Faraday tried
to decline most consultancy work, he accepted work that “furnished good material
for Friday Evening Discourses.”84 It is likely, given his enthusiasm for antiquities to
adorn the Library table, that some of his archaeological work fell within this
category.
It remains to consider Faraday’s place in the emergence and development of
archaeological chemistry. On one level the appearance of reports by scientific or
technical specialists embedded in or appended to published summaries of archaeo-
logical excavations appears startlingly modern, particularly given the long-standing
prevalence of fairly superficial Whiggish histories of archaeology. Indeed, few
general studies of the history or historiography of archaeology have paid much
attention to archaeological science at all, so at present at least it is difficult to fit
Faraday’s work (or rather Gage’s, Pettigrew’s, and Diamond’s work) into a disciplin-
ary framework. However there are a growing number of recent studies that have
highlighted the intellectual vibrancy of the British archaeological community in
the nineteenth century, particularly in the years leading up to 1859 and the more

79
Forgan, “Faraday,” 57.
80
James, Faraday, 4. James records that even after Faraday ceased the bulk of his commercial work his income
remained strong, never falling below £800 per annum after 1836.
81
Tyndall, Faraday, 189–90.
82
Tyndall, Faraday, 188.
83
Cantor, Faraday, 108.
84
Forgan, “Faraday,” 58.
 FARADAY’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY 285

widespread acceptance of a “deep time” model of human origins.85 It is also becom-

ing clear that to understand British archaeology in this period it is vital to be aware
of contemporary intellectual developments in France and beyond, as Pettigrew’s
review of Egyptian mummy studies demonstrates.86
Alongside the intellectual history of archaeology, Faraday’s work raises questions
of labour history. The tensions between the amateur and the professional that Levine
traces across mid-nineteenth-century British antiquarianism and archaeology
occasionally exploded into near-class warfare, as demonstrated by the never-
repaired schism in the British Archaeological Association in 1845.87 Archaeologists
such as Gage routinely listed the names of the distinguished day-trippers who visited
their excavations, but not of the labourers who ground the ancient barrows down to
the bare soil (with a few notable exceptions). Those professionals who provided
technical assistance such as Faraday or William Clift of the Royal College of Sur-
geons merited a mention by name, but it is possible that other similar contributions
to papers presented at the Society of Antiquaries and elsewhere were subsumed
anonymously into the final reports.
I hope that a wider appreciation of Faraday’s contributions to early archaeological
chemistry might stimulate a greater interest in this field, and in the wider field of the
interdisciplinary history of archaeology science. There is undoubtedly more material
to be discovered hidden in plain sight in the archives of national and local archaeol-
ogy journals and books that can shed light on the development of these subjects.
Further work is also needed to examine the international dimension, with particular
emphasis on French, German, and Italian antiquarian and scientific scholarship
from at least the mid-eighteenth century onward. It is in these wider contexts that
Faraday’s archaeological work must be located and understood as a small aspect
of an extraordinary career, but a significant component of an important if hitherto-
neglected dimension of European intellectual history.

Acknowledgements
Being neither a historian of science nor an archaeological scientist I have been for-
tunate to have had assistance from both in the development of this work. I am par-
ticularly grateful to Mark Pollard and Frank James for their guidance and advice.
Ian Freestone, Hella Eckardt, and David Clarke pointed me in the direction of
sources that I would otherwise have missed, while the manuscript benefitted from
85
E.g. C. Stephen Briggs, “Prehistory in the Nineteenth Century,” in Visions of Antiquity: the Society of Antiquaries of
London 1707–2007, ed. Susan Pearce (London: Society of Antiquaries of London, 2007), 227–66; C. Stephen Briggs,
“Some Reflections on the Archaeological Institute’s Oxford Congress in 1850,” Archaeological Journal 166 (2009):
210–36; Christopher Evans, “1859 – Marking Time,” Antiquity 83 (2009): 458–61.
86
See, for example, Pollard, “From Bells to Cannon”; Clive Gamble and Robert Kruszynski, “John Evans, Joseph
Prestwich and the Stone that Shattered the Time Barrier,” Antiquity 83 (2009): 461–75; Marc-Antoine Kaeser,
“On the International Roots of Prehistory,” Antiquity 76 (2002): 170–77.
87
Levine, Amateur; David M. Wetherall, “From Canterbury to Winchester: the Foundation of the Institute,” in Build-
ing on the Past: Papers Celebrating 150 Years of the Royal Archaeological Institute, ed. Blaise Vyner (London: Royal
Archaeological Institute, 1994), 8–21.
286 GABRIEL MOSHENSKA

comments and suggestions from Marcos Martinon-Torres, Amara Thornton, Chana

Moshenska, and Raf Salkie. Finally, I am extremely grateful to the editors of Ambix
and the two anonymous referees for their constructive and perceptive comments.

Notes on contributor
Gabriel Moshenska is Lecturer in Public Archaeology at UCL Institute of Archaeol-
ogy. His research includes work on the history of nineteenth and early twentieth-
century archaeology; the archaeology, material culture, and memory of
the Second World War; and the public understanding of the past. Address:
UCL Institute of Archaeology, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY,
UK. Email: g.moshenska@ucl.ac.uk.
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