Article Mediating meanings: conservation of the Staffordshire Hoard Brian Castriota History of Art, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK. Abstract Since the Staffordshire Hoard’s discovery in 2009, soil removal has been carried out over several years by conservators working with the Staffordshire Hoard Conservation Project at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. As a case study, this essay examines the practical and philosophical considerations that arose during the author’s cleaning of object K1195, a gold and garnet cloisonne ´ sword pommel cap, in 2012. Cleaning – understood as a culturally determined intervention that enacts per- manent change on an object – is a frequent subject of debate within cultural heritage preservation. This essay considers the cleaning of an archaeological object with respect to its ontological status, borrowing concepts employed in the conservation of modern and contemporary works of art. postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies (2016) 7, 369–377. doi:10.1057/s41280-016-0003-5 The cleaning of an artifact by a conservator – that is, the selective removal of soil and burial accretions – is as an act of inquiry that is as much semiological as it is surgical. During cleaning, the conservator identifies and delineates both the physical object and an idea of the object. Cleaning invariably distinguishes between the ‘conservation object’ (Mun ˜ oz Vin ˜ as, 2004) – those elements endowed with meaning and value, and thus deemed worthy of conservation – and material of lesser significance, regarded as ‘matter out of place’ (Douglas, 1966, 13; Brooks and Eastop, 2006). Cleaning is a reflection on and manipulation of the object not only as a material entity but also as a bundle Ó 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 2040-5960 postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies Vol. 7, 3, 369–377 www.palgrave.com/journals