Black Sea 2007, Day 16
You’ll notice this picture of the Flamingo is REALLY far away. There’s a reason for that. Over the past couple days we’ve been using a Marine VHF radio to communicate back and forth between us and the Flamingo. It’s also the operational channel the Alliance and the Flamingo communicate on. We’ve heard them tell them to veer off a couple of times, which means, “Hey! You’re too close! Back away from the NATO Research Vessel!”
There are pictures I’d prefer to show you, but I can’t, because of the sensitive nature of what we’re looking at, but we’ve begun the archeology part of this leg. We spent the first couple days making mosaics of the wreck site, so that when we did start to dig, the scientists would know where stuff was, before we moved it or changed the site. For those that don’t know, to make a mosaic you take about a hundred pictures from above of the wreck. Then using software you can stitch the pictures together to make a huge picture of the entire site.
You’ve seen in movies where the archeologist is using a paint brush to lightly brush away sand and sediment from whatever object we’re looking at. It’s long and arduous work, but in the end you’ve got something that’s uncovered and (hopefully) undamaged. In this case the manipulator has a few options: a paint brush, a soft cooking spatula, a wire basket (for sifting), a vacuum, and finally a VERY gentle jet of water.
When there’s masses of mud and dirt sitting around something, we can use the vacuum to pull the sand away. When we’re working in a tight area, we have the brush and spatula. When we’ve made a huge mess, but there’s only a light dusting, then we fly over the wreck and use the downward force of the props to push the sand around. It’s not the most gentile and scientific way, but damn-it we move a LOT of sand!
Today we’re also picking up and moving some of the jars and amphora. It seems there are different types of vessels within the wreck. Most of them are jars (one handle) and there are a couple of amphora (two handles) in the wreck which makes it interesting to the archeologists. The other interesting part, is we just see this pile of stuff: jars and wood, sticking out of the sand. When we start to dig in one area, a small piece of wood (maybe about a foot) is uncovered we discover it isn’t small at all. One piece is a good 10 feet long! This maybe the tip of an “iceberg”!
posted by DaveandBrian @ 3:31 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home