The project director was Eunice Dauterman Maguire, Curator, Krannert Art Museum. The conservator was Sharon Koehler. Technical analyses were coordinated by Sarah Wisseman, Director, Program on Ancient Technologies and Archaeological Materials (ATAM). The on-line exhibit was produced and designed by Brad Whitmore (Department of General Engineering).
Imaging was performed at the Large Animal Clinic at the University of Illinois by Richard Keen, an animal imaging technologist in the Department of Veterinary Medicine.
Compositional analysis by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy was performed professor Steven Altaner and graduate student Robert Ylangan in the Department of Geology.
Fluorescence spectroscopy, a technique usually applied to biological materials, was explored as a possible method for analyzing the surface layers of the drum. Peter So and Todd French, under the direction of Enrico Gratton and William Mantulin at the Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics (Physics), tested a smaller Nasca artifact (a ceramic frog). The results did not yield new information, so the experiment was not repeated on the drum.
Special thanks to John Edwards, museum photographer, and the following people who assisted the conservator in the conservation and restoration: Corine Abbousuan, Ann Hutflies, Julie Wolf, and Shirley Koehler.
This project was funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
