The Cleaning Begins

Looking out from the scaffolding over so many huge bones in need of intensive cleaning, conservation and restoration certainly seems like a monsterous task but we have to start somewhere so we have chosen to begin working on the whale hall's most famous skeleton the Right whale (Ubalaena glacialis) which has been hanging in the musuem window for the city to see for around 100 years.





We've named the skeleton 'Benny' and the cleaning has begun.




This first skeleton gives us the oppertunity to develop the techniques we will use for cleaning this fragile and very unique bone material. The skeletons continually ooze a thin layer of oil - this oil comes from the thick layer of blubber produced by the whales in life - and the dust and dirt sticks to this oily layer forming a tough and greasy black layer over the bones.




An example of the grease and dirt layers in this case covering tail vertebrae.

Marielle cleaning Benny's arm

After experimenting with various cleaning solutions and recipes we settled on using substances that would have a degreasing effect and remove the vast amjority of the dirt without ....... the excessive use of water (which can be absorbed by the bones), without damaging the structure of the bone (bleach for example would dregrade DNA) and that wouldn't leave any surfacantants on the bone surface.

Finally, it was decided that after much experimentation a combination of ammonia hydroxide, ethanol, acetone and detergent would be used. This has proved very effective as the photo of Benny's arm below shows....

A dramatic difference can be seen in the bone colour between the cleaned ulna (top) and uncleaned radius (bottom).

However, despite the fact that the whale oil is causing so many problems for our skeletons (and the team trying to clean it off) traditionally it has been a hugely important and widely traded product that was harvested particularyly from Right whales such as Benny. Whale oil has been used in a wide range of products from lipstick to margarine and it wasn't until the descovery of petroleum waxes and oils that it went out of use.

The scaffolding is up!

Once the sharks in the whale hall had been moved out or protectively wrapped the scaffolders could start work and in less than a week one half of the whale hall was covered with a network of scaffolding paltforms postioned around the hanging skeltons that we could access by steps and ladders.

The scaffolding goes up around the protectively wrapped basking shark specimen

The floor of the whale hall is original, dating back to the 1800's so it cannot be heavily loaded as we don't want to risk damaging it. For this reason we made the decision that rather than putting scaffolding up in the whole hall we would scaffold half the hall and work on the skeletons hanging in that area and then dismantle and move the scaffolding to the second half of the hall and work on the remaining skeletons.


The floor and glass cabinets surrounding the walls of the hall are covered to protect them from debris and dust.


It's an exciting time as now we can get up close to the skeletons for the first time and really see what condition the bones are in and what work needs to be done to conserve them...........


The scaffolding will allow us to quite literally work in the belly of the whales!

Four stuffed sharks and a sunfish

The huge sunfish hanging in the whale hall

Back in March this year Catherine, Zina, Marielle and Gordon had arrived in Bergen and together with Christina and the others at Bergen Musuem the whale team was all finally together. We quickly got to know each other over many cups of coffee and pieces of cake and started to plan the work that would need to be carried on the whale skeletons.

So, first things first, we needed to reach the skeletons hanging high up above the musuem floor.

It was quickly decided that scaffolding and platforms should set up around the skeletons at almost ceiling height giving us access to every part of the whale skeletons. However as well as the whale skeletons the whale hall contains two whale skulls, one of a Bottlenosed whale and one of a sperm whale and some very unique examples of large, stuffed shark skins and a huge stuffed sunfish. Before there would be room to put the scaffolding up around the whale skeletons these would first have to be moved.

The sharks in the whale hall positioned under the hanging whale skeletons.

These skins are very interesting as they are examples of musuem taxidermy that is now very rarely seen. Today it is much more common to make casts and models of large marine animals as this method of preserving and stuffing skins is much more difficult. Because of their age they are very fragile and it was important that they were not damaged in the moving process.

The 'stuffed' basking shark skin - a beautiful example of a rare taxidermy technique

We set about gathering together all the fit young (and some not so young) men and women we could find wandering the corridors of the musuem offices. Then, after much padding, wrapping and cushioning and a lot of help and some very useful ideas from Umberto and Thor we lifted and moved 3 of the sharks and the bottlenosed whale skull out of the hall. Together with their stands they were unbelievably heavy!

The sunfish,basking whale and sperm whale skull were just too big and fragile to risk moving so they were carefully wrapped by Marielle ready for the arrival of the scaffolders.....

The now clear floor of the whale hall ready for the scaffolding to be put up.