Worldbuilding Notes | Do Old Objects 'Remember'? A Few Sayings the Museum Guidebook Won't Print
Do old objects 'remember'? This isn't a scientific question, but a saying that nearly every veteran restorer, old curator, and antique dealer will nod to in private — yet no one writes into the guidebook. A few folk sayings, collected here, to be taken merely as stories.
(This is a compilation of folk sayings; it does not represent the position of any museum or academic institution, and is offered merely as a story.)
Ask a veteran artifact restorer whether old objects 'remember' things, and he'll usually smile and say no — then, a few seconds later, add: 'Though some things are best not touched carelessly.'
'Remember,' of course, is not a scientific term. But within this circle, from restorers to old curators to antique dealers, there circulates a set of sayings that no one will write into a guidebook. A few of them, collected here, to be heard as after-dinner stories.
Saying One: Some Objects Are Never Loaned Out
Every great museum has a few 'treasures of the house' that are never loaned out, year-round. The official reasons are standard: too fragile, insurance too costly, transport too risky. But insiders will occasionally lower their voices and give you another version — some things grow 'restless' when moved, and leaving them in place is the least troublesome course.
Saying Two: Don't Recite the Inscription in Full, Alone
Faced with an object inscribed with ancient writing, old-school restorers have a habit verging on superstition: you may study it character by character, but don't recite the whole passage aloud, alone. Ask why, and they can't quite explain — they only say, 'My master taught me so.' One retired old master put it more bluntly: 'The characters are a door. You stand alone at the door and recite the whole string of keys, the door opens — and who's standing outside, you don't know.'
Saying Three: Restoration Records 'Don't Match Up'
Restoring an artifact, every step must be recorded, photographed, archived. But some restorers privately complain that for certain particular pieces, the records 'don't match up' — the step you wrote yesterday, looking again today, has gained a line, or lost one, and the handwriting is still your own. Most of them don't make a fuss. In this trade, when records and memory don't match, the first to be doubted is always the person, not the artifact.
Do these sayings hold water? Probably not. Artifacts are inanimate, ink runs, people tire, memory errs. Every one of these has a perfectly ordinary explanation.
Only — when so many calm, rigorous, worldly people in one circle, all in unison, say softly of the same kind of object, 'best not touch that' — won't you, too, grow curious: what exactly are they being careful of?
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