[Aaron Henkin] Aaron Hankin here from WYPR Public Radio with Kel Millionie. Kel is artistic director of an aerial theater company here in Baltimore. And Kel, these are obviously some acrobatic figures we're looking at. [Kel Millionie] We see these two figures hand balancing. They are connected via their feet here. [Aaron Henkin] Kel, do you think this accurately represents acrobatics? [Kel Millionie] Yeah, I think it does. This is something that may have been done on top of two wooden balls. This pose, this something that the artist would've needed to see to be able to execute well. This position itself isn't too difficult. Something like this, they probably held in sessions for five minutes, ten minutes at a time, which with enough training is a very doable feat.

[Aaron Henkin] I talked with Christine Downie Walden, a BMA objects conservator, about this piece. It dates to the year 200, but until the 1980s, they didn't know how old it actually was. [Christine Downie] Well, they decided that back in 1988 they would do some thermal luminescence testing on it, or for short TL testing, to establish how old this piece was. When you do TL testing, you take a tiny drill, drill into the object in a discreet spot, and collect the powder. So they sampled in two spots because they wanted to see if the acrobat and the pot portion had been fired at the same time. Results came through and they were fired at similar time. [Aaron Henkin] So I wonder which of those two acrobats they drilled into to get the sample. [Christine Downie] In the TL report, they referred to them as red pants and pink pants. They did the sampling between the legs of red pants. Of course, being an object conservator and the one that will be filling that hole and doing in-painting on it, I hope you don't see it.