Hello Listserve,I work at a 1915 historic house. It was recently discovered that one of the fireplace ash pits has never been cleaned out. We spent a day getting very dirty and picking though a lot of fireplace ash to discover that the fireplace has also been used as a defacto garbage bin. The house has many fireplaces but this one is special in that it is the fireplace that sits in the domestic staff dining room so we know the materials we are discovering tell us something about the people who worked on property.My question is that we found a number of fruit rinds and peels - oranges, lemons, limes, banana, corn on the cob, cantelope, pumpkin seens, cinnamon sticks, etc. I would like to include these in the museum's collection but I have never worked with these types of materials before and want to see if anyone has advice on storage, possible future decomosition, etc.They have been packed (and in many ways preserved) in ash for 100 years. Are they stable at this point? Do they need to be kept at cooler temperatures? Any advice or thoughts are welcome.Julie LeoneDirector of Museum Services/CuratorStan Hywet Hall & GardensAkron, OH
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